Mushoku Tensei - Lifelong Apology
by Straist
Summary: What did his family feel when they kicked him out of the house? One question, and the true feelings of those he once loved change everything. (M for some Language I used)
1. James Arthur

_**Chapter 1: ...I won't Sleep till You're Safe Inside...**_

* * *

We were happy once.

When the world was as simple as making friends, listening to teachers and parents, going to school, and having fun with my brothers, we were happy. We didn't have much back then, but we always had enough to get by. Our parents both worked, but father always made time to play with us when they reached home and mother adored us like no mother ever could. We argued sometimes, we had friends who came and went, and we inevitably got hurt every now and again, but we had each other. At the end of the day, we knew that we had a home to return to, dinner to eat, a bed waiting for us, and a family that would share in our joys and pains; and that was enough.

We were happy.

But that was back then; Now...

Now everything is so much better, but so much worse.

My eldest brother was always a prodigy when it came to martial arts. He reached the highest rank in Karate a long time ago and was one of the youngest participants the first time he entered -and subsequently won- the World Championship. On top of being one of the most formidable competitors in the field of Kumite, he managed a small group of business and was well known in the area as being something like 'Legal Yakuza Boss' due to his imposing presence and thankfully, his ethics in doing business. He was always fair with his partners and always kind to his subordinates. He never let the possibility of earning more negatively affect how he treated others, and he was fiercely protective of those under him. He was always the one who took care of us while we were growing up after all, and that extended to everyone he dealt with, from his acquaintances to us, his younger siblings.

He's always been our rock, though sometimes he can be hard headed.

I, the second child and only daughter, was better suited to the academe than the corporate world, or the arena of sports. I was smart enough to earn a scholarship overseas and graduate with honors, but I came back and did research here, though out of familial love rather than fiery patriotism. I was athletic, and I've made it a habit to run at least three times a week, but it never really clicked with me. I was person one might call and Otaku growing up, but as much as I loved the world of games, anime, and idols, the world of science was infinitely more interesting. That didn't mean that I stopped indulging in the occasional tankoubon, or catching the latest series, but I know how to put my work first since that's what gets food on the table. I've never missed a single celebration before, whether it involves friends or family -I'm that good at compartmentalizing- but I'm still single.

I have very high standards, okay?

Our third brother is a literary genius as well as the best among us when it comes to romance. He always seems to know what to say and how to say it, to ensure the greatest effect, if that means convincing me to attend a book signing, or getting his wife to forgive him for forgetting to call her... again. He's a very successful author, managing to write light novels -corruption successful- to scripts for films, and everything he writes would sell very well at best or break even at the very least. He's managed to win some awards over the long years of writing, though as good as he is, he's someone who works for it and never overplays his role in the finished product. He's a team player, more so than I or our eldest brother, and to this day I think that's how he finally managed to win his wife.

It was always cute how he would scream at the mirror saying "You're being such a Protagonist; just grow some balls and just confess to her!"

Our youngest brother was... eccentric to say the least. He was something like a Yankee -I mean someone from America, not the delinquent- but I guess that's what would happen after we allowed him to study and later work there. He would always tell us how much he loves the culture there, the food, the sights, and how everything still feels fresh even if he's lived there for a few years. He said something about reaching the stars when he finally got into that NASA, but just whenever he travels he would always complain about how the plane made him sick. He said he met someone, and he was trying to take it slow before doing anything too drastic, and I approve of his choice: he was always the most patient of us. He tried to make it a habit to come home whenever he could, but we knew that he was an adult now, and he had a life there.

We were happy he did manage to come home, but we were all heartbroken that he had to go home to... the mess our family was.

My parents died just a few days ago, and this was the day of the funeral.

To make matters worse, our third brother still refused to come out of his room.

We were patient with him. We never tried to force him out of his room. We always made sure that there was food in front of his door when it was time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We made sure that he always had clothes to wear and washed them when he left them by his door. We did everything we could to make sure his life was comfortable, and tirelessly asked him if he felt like seeing any of us. Every. Single. Day. And of course every day, he would say no. Actually, we were lucky if we could hear him say no at all; most of the time he would remain silent.

I would ask him if he wanted to check out a new manga or doujin with me. My brothers would ask if he wanted to go out every once and a while. Our youngest would try and call him via his computer. But that never changed anything, because every time we try to close the distance, we're either ignored or pushed away.

That patience snapped when our youngest brother heard moans coming from his room. I can't speak for my brothers, but I lost all my patience when I realized that my parents were dead, my family was mourning, and all our third brother could do was watch adult videos without headphones.

We stormed his room, and the last thing I could remember was that he was watching loli hentai.

Everything was a blur after that.

We only managed to steady ourselves when we realized that we just stormed our brother's room, destroyed his computer, beat him to a pulp, and threw him out of the house.

We did that because we finally had enough, and the sight of him masturbating to some animated video about children during our parents funeral was enough to finally break us.

At the point we broke, and we hated the wreak our beloved brother had become.

Our third brother was broken too, but he wasn't always like that.

Once upon a time, we knew a boy who would struggle to keep up with me as I sprinted. No matter how hard our eldest brother trained, this boy would try to join in even if he would always quit halfway through. This boy would listen with innocent awe whenever our second brother made up a story. This boy took good care of our youngest brother when we were all still little children, and the little baby loved him for that.

We once knew a boy who was the master of the computer even as I mastered the games played there. We once knew a boy who could talk to machines in their language and tell it to do things that we never thought it could do. We once knew a boy who could amaze an entire classroom as he earnestly studied material well ahead of his classmates just for the fun of it. We once knew a boy who won the heart of our neighbor, a cute little girl who once captained their school's track team, just by being his amazing, confusing, and bright self.

We loved this boy, with everything we had, and we were happy.

We didn't care that he was a chunni, and that sometimes he would say strange things when I was the same and our brothers loved him anyway. We didn't care that he spent so much time with his machines when he spent just as much playing with us. We didn't care that his grades were average at best and barely passing at worst when he could easily earn a perfect score whenever he wanted.

And then... something happened.

He got into a fight with a senpai of his, and though he would train with our eldest brother, this boy was never a fighter despite his strange claims. The boy we once knew was beaten and humiliated, and the brightness he once had was smothered so thoroughly that he never left his room again. My brothers and my father tried to get him out, after making sure that the one who hurt the boy so badly could never walk again, but he remained in his room.

We don't think he ever heard what my eldest brother did to the senpai who caused all this, and if he did it looked like he didn't care.

He turned to the things we both loved, the 2D world but even if my second brother wrote for him, the boy returned his efforts with scorn. My second brother just started writing by then, and he was still in school, but for every good word said about work he published, the boy we once knew could only criticize and insult. Still tirelessly, we tried to reach him with words and images, and just as tirelessly did the boy ignore our efforts.

Our second brother always, and I mean always, dedicated his work to his family, to the boy we once knew, but that counted for nothing.

My youngest brother and I regaled him with tales of the world beyond the screen, and the places abroad, but they fell on deaf ears. We offered him gifts from the places that we reached, from the deserts of the middle east to the cities of the west, but even now they were unopened and collected dust. We tried our very best to pull him back into the real world without resorting to hostile or intrusive action, but he was firmly entrenched in the world of the Internet.

We tried to show him the world, but he had grown to love the world he created for himself even more than he loved any of us.

He loved it enough that he would do something so disgusting despite what was happening outside the four corners of his room.

For that moment in time, we stopped seeing the boy we once knew, and started seeing a broken man with no place in this world. We didn't see our brother, whose naked pictures were taken off of the internet, but a worthless pile of flesh simply waiting for death. We didn't see the bright, energetic boy we grew up with, but a stranger in our home.

In our grief, we acted accordingly but when our emotions subsided and our eyes cleared, we remembered who once was.

We just lost our parents, and now we lost our third brother.

The guilt I felt was absolutely soul crushing, but the desperation welling up from inside me was even more overwhelming. With speed I didn't know I still had, I was off the couch, out of the living room, and into the rain outside.

I didn't have to look very hard as the sight of a plump man in dirty clothing entered my vision. The relief I felt when I saw my younger brother standing out in the rain almost sent me flying to his figure.

I wanted to take everything back and apologize for the things we said. I wanted him to know that we knew how it felt to be broken, and that we could share in his pain. I wanted to tell him that we still loved him despite how he looked at himself, despite all the years he's wasted and all the things he did. I wanted to hug my brother for the first time in a decade, even if he hasn't bathed in weeks and we were standing in the middle of the street.

But he moved.

I realized that I was so focused on him that I couldn't see what was around him, and when I finally saw what forced him forward, my heart fell. Three children, a girl and two boys were having a quarrel, and all three unaware that there was a truck speeding towards them. I tried to yell, to scream at the top of my lungs but the children, the driver of the truck, and my brother couldn't hear my voice as it was being muffled by the rain. I could only force myself forward when I realized what my little brother was about to do, since his voice couldn't reach the children, or the driver either.

In slow motion, he hobbled over to try and save them.

Pride welled up from within me as I saw my little brother again, the boy we once knew and the one we thought had gone forever, but that feeling was quickly crushed in the face of his impending doom.

I was excellent at math, but it didn't take a genius to realize that he wouldn't make it.

He would manage to save the children, sure, but at the cost of his own life.

I couldn't let that happen.

I was a runner and was much lighter than he was so it wasn't a problem to cross the distance quickly. Despite the rain and the wet road, I flew towards them like my life depended on it, because four lives did. The boy quickly hugged the girl in an attempt to protect her from the truck, but I couldn't see if it would do any good. My brother managed to grasp the collar of the other boy, but if he was to throw him to the side, then he would doom himself.

It was physics after all, and be it theoretical or practical, I knew physics.

I sidestepped the boy my brother threw toward the curb, managing to place my palm on his chest, and I pushed with all my might. I couldn't see the surprise that must have been etched on his face as I closed my eyes and crashed into him. I could feel my momentum bleeding out, the force being transferred as we collided, but no matter how fast I managed to reach him, I could feel the impact as I embraced my brother one last time.

He was much too heavy, and though I was moving much faster than he was, I needed more speed if I wanted to move a mass triple mine a safe distance away.

I could only pray that he would forgive me for my failure as an older sister when I felt the truck finally reach us.

* * *

 **AN: Fuck** **Kaocakeman for making me write this...**

 **Okay, I'm sorry, that was bad, and really this story is bad in terms of grammar and spelling since I'm dyslexic and crying right now... I just want to get all of is down; what I feel when writing this before it gets away and I return to my stoic or happy self.**

 **The prologue really connected to me, I mean the canon prologue, but I always wondered how the siblings really felt when they did what they did. I thought about this since, well, I have a sibling that is dealing with problems, pretty badly if I do say so myself, and even if I try really, really, hard I just can't seem to reach her. I mean, I tried everything to make sure she's fine, to help her out however I can, but she doesn't get better, and one day... one day I was sick of it.**

 **I snapped and it wasn't pretty.**

 **Long story short, we had a shouting match, and I had to hold her for three hours just to stop her from ending it all. We were both crying, and thankfully alive, at the end of it.**

 **I listen to music when I write, that's how I make titles in Silly Songbird and that's how I'm doing it here, and well everything just clicked that I ended up... emotional.**

 **I would have posted this hours ago, but I really had to go a hug my sister as soon as I finished.**

 **I'll edit and do the other usual things later.**

 **I need a tissue, or a box.**

 **EDIT: Alright, better now, I think I got all my earlier mistakes down so there's that.**

 **To NakedFury, who reviewed early: It's really not supposed to. For a first chapter it's quite chaotic and it does nothing but propose to the readers that there are characters and the bare minimum of what they're feeling. To those who know the source material, it's something that would eventually explain the changes I would make, and for those who just stumble upon it, it doesn't really make much sense: and that's intentional. It's like watching a person break down from the inside; its not supposed to make you feel anything unless you've actually been there, and more often than not, it doesn't make sense. TLDR: I wrote this chapter for me so it's not a surprise if no one can relate to it =))**

 **Anyway, I don't think I'll be updating this as often as Silly Songbird, and you all know how long it takes me to get on that, but I'll try to write it when the ideas come.**

 **Read, if you really want to, Review, if you want to say something or have any questions, Follow and Favorite... up to you really.**

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**


	2. Queen

_**Chapter 2: ...It's a Kind of Magic...**_

* * *

Before anything else, I would like to present the thesis of this short narrative, and that is that I have somehow been reincarnated as a baby in a world where magic exists.

As for the proofs that would support this assertion, we must start right after my brother and I were killed by truck-san

The first thing I saw after the crash was the color red. Immediately, there was a sense of wrongness that permeated the mysterious, cramped, and dimly lit room but I didn't really think about it until a few minutes later. The situation was something like this: there was a strange feeling of foreboding in the air, as if something very, very, VERY BAD was going to happen, but I had no way of knowing just how horrible I had it until everything went to shit.

Let's just focus on something else, shall we...

Ever since I watched my youngest brother being born, I wondered if babies could remember what was happening around them. It took a few years before I could understand some of the jargon, but I found out that such a thing would be impossible because scientifically speaking their brains aren't developed enough to form the neural pathways that we associate with long term memory. Different studies reported that the brains of babies tend to retain very little of 'true memory' or rather the events and narratives that we call memories and instead they more easily retain certain skills or behaviors. Supposedly, this is one of the reasons why we remember how to walk, or what the names of certain objects are rather than when and how we learned them.

Today I learned that even if babies could remember what it was like to be born into the world, they would most likely choose to forget it, just as how I was desperately trying to forget mine.

How do I know I was just born, you ask? The answer was simpler than expected.

We must first establish that I was screaming. This is by no means proof, but I would like to assert that after being forced through some slick, writhing passage from strange and definitely wrong warmth to shockingly cold light, anyone would be screaming for their lives. Anyway, I didn't know exactly when I stopped screaming, but when I did decide to give my lungs a bit of rest, I noticed something very strange about my surroundings.

For one, I couldn't move my head very well, and I was somehow trapped within a strange enclosure, that had thick wooden bars arranged in a fence-like fashion a few feet away from me. Despite the crude design of the bars, forgive my lack of focus as my eyes still had trouble with light at this point, it was obvious that this enclosure was made to keep things in rather than keep things out. Though, that didn't make too much sense to me as I, despite being somewhere in the middle of the prison, was comfortably wrapped in a bundle of cloth while a very soft pillow cradled my head. At first, it made no sense to me; if you were going to cage someone, even if that someone was just run over by a truck, you didn't go out of your way to make sure they were comfortable.

And then I felt something moving behind me.

I couldn't move. There could have been many reasons for this, be it the cloth that was wrapped around me, or the injuries that I should have sustained when the truck made impact. I could have been stuck in some coma for a while that my muscles have were afflicted with atrophy that required rehabilitation to remedy. No matter what I thought at the time, all I knew was that I was held against my will and that something within the strange prison was moving behind me.

So I screamed.

The next thing I knew, I was being lifted up and held against something soft and warm, but that little tidbit was relegated to the back of my mind as I looked over my own body.

A much smaller body.

There was no mistaking it; even if I couldn't see how large my head was, I could definitely see the small blanket that enveloped my smaller body. It even had a cute little pattern to serve as decoration as bright feminine colors dyed the fabric and caught my eyes...

Wait...

So this body influences thoughts too?

Never mind, that is a discussion for another time.

Now that we have established that I was currently a baby, allow me to explain how I reached the conclusion about magic and my being in another world.

To be perfectly honest, that assertion was born of despair more than anything else.

Traditional reincarnation didn't allow for the carrying over of memories at least in the context of earth, or what we like to call the _real world_ , so the only other explanation, though highly implausible, would be that I've been reincarnated in another world. To that effect, my soul was transferred into the body the woman who was to be my new mother and science did the rest. The justification of the existence of magic would then hinge on the assumption that the memories of my old life were stored in what we know as the soul and that with the transfer of my soul, the memories also followed.

And that made some measure of sense, since it was quite obvious that a baby couldn't remember things so early on, much less its thoughts mere hours after its birth.

Well, it was that or babies forgot their past lives during their early years and I could live my new life with some measure of peace.

Neither option was particularly attractive at this point, but they had their own advantages.

If ever I would forget then it wouldn't matter to me anymore...

But if Magic really did exist, and I retained a measure of what I learned then things would prove to be interesting.

Of course, those thoughts came later, when I finally got over the shock, my death, and the death of my little bother.

At that time, I could only weep as I took in my new form as a baby, and fear for the uncertain future.

I didn't stop crying for a long time.

* * *

As a woman who once had to work more than eighteen hours a day, I'd say that being a baby had its perks.

The first, of course, was the fact that I didn't have to so much as move if I wanted anything. My mother, a beautiful woman with the face of an angel as depicted by some famous European Master, a figure that would make statues of Greek Goddesses crack in shame, and a voice that never failed to make me feel warm, safe, and loved, dutifully attended to me whenever I had a problem.

If I was hungry, all I had to do was cry, and she would come to me like the angel she was, bring me up to her considerable bosom, and allow me to suckle until I had my fill. If I made a mess of myself, to my shame as an adult if only in mind, I would only have to cry and she would relieve me of my burden and clean up after whatever mess I made. If I was ever tired or felt anything other than hunger or discomfort, I would only have to cry out and she would bring me to bed, either with her and our father, or in the small crib I mistook as a prison on the day I was born.

And I was never bored as there was always someone or something to keep my attention occupied. On the list of people, was my beloved mother, the saint that she was, my father, and my aunt.

Now father was rarely there and that must have been because of whatever he did for work, but whenever he was around, the man would always try his best to make me smile. The man himself was handsome, with features of a hero and a body to match, his form one more suited to sprinters or soldiers rather than muscled strong men or those heavy weight lifters. Despite his sharpness and the strange fire he held in his gaze, whenever he was with either mother or me, he would always put up a genuine smile and he never failed to draw a smile from either my mother, or my aunt. I would try to ignore him, as petty as it was, because mother and auntie would always laugh whenever he failed to make me smile, but he would always win in the end.

For some reason, I was even more ticklish now than I ever was in my past life.

Now my aunt, didn't feel like she was my aunt, but she didn't feel like she was a simple servant or midwife either. She was the most efficient at taking care of me, and she was always able to tell why I was crying as opposed to my parents who would always flounder between the three main reasons before trying all three and eventually satisfying me. She wasn't one to smile very often, but when she did she shined as brightly as my mother did, especially when I could see tenderness and genuine love in her eyes.

Those eyes were just as strange as mother's by the way, something in between blue, violet, and red, while her hair was a rich dark brown and just a shade darker than my fathers. It was that combination of attributes, my mother's eyes, her beauty, and my father's hair, that first suggested that she was my sister but that was quickly pushed aside when I saw that she was just as old as my mother was.

Magic or not, I didn't think she could look that much like my mother and still be my sister, or if that was the case then they would have to tell it to me straight before I believed it.

Anyway, other than being waited on hand and foot, I was also able to, more likely forced to, interact more with my twin brother.

Not that I was complaining about it because that boy, he was just so...

That's right, I had a twin brother, who was younger by a few minutes I think, and he was just the most adorable little mass of cute baby fat, moonlight, and rainbows. He was the one moving behind me on the day I was born, because someone, father, thought it would be a good idea to bring a struggling mass of newborn baby beside a supposedly peacefully slumbering one.

I made sure he understood my opinion regarding that idiotic move, but not only because he scared me half to death while I was in shock, but because he didn't let me see the adorable face of my little brother until I woke up beside him the next day. I redoubled my volume and the degree of pain my wails inflicted when my parents thought it was a good idea to take him away from me; on account of me crying too much I assume.

But he was my adorable little bundle of chubby cheeks and gurgling gibberish, dammit! That was the day I fell in love with the little miracle; he had my heart in the palm of his tiny widdle hands as soon as our eyes met.

He was as perfect as my little brothers were the day they were born, with a face that you couldn't help but love unless you kicked puppies for fun and eyes that simply screamed innocence that you couldn't help but want to protect them. And the best part about him was he didn't cry nearly as much as I did during the first few weeks, so I never had to deal with anything other than my own grief and sorrow until such a time that I made peace with the fact that I would never be able to see my family and friends again.

He was very quiet for a baby, and admittedly that sparked a little bit of worry from me, but he seemed as strong and healthy as babies came, and I was a little bit preoccupied with my shock to find out why he was so silent.

On a side note, weeping nonstop and wailing at the top of your lungs for hours was oddly therapeutic and after a couple of days, I could finally focus on something other than the hopelessness that took over me and the wish to just cease existing. Those were not my best moments, but at the very least my mother, my aunt, and my brother were nothing but supportive, all of them, yes even the little cutie, trying to comfort me in their own way while I drowned in negativity.

The moment that he crawled to my side and tried to hug me with his tiny widdle arms, I promised myself to live this life to the best of my ability, if not just for myself, then for the new family I was given.

And that meant doing what I did best.

Learning about Everything.

Being a baby, and by extension, having nothing to do for almost hours on end helped with that very much.

At this point, I knew that we did live in an entirely different world on account that our parents spoke gibberish. I wouldn't have been so easily convinced if they simply spoke gibberish only in our presence, because let's face is, the itty bitty other half of my heart and I were babies and even I knew that babytalk could not be avoided when in the presence of a baby.

If they were using babytalk on us, and I'd admit that father could be funny at times, I would have let it go but that qualifier was quickly rendered invalid when they continued speaking the same gibberish among themselves, as if my mother, my father, and my aunt were all babies. That meant that, though they could be using babytalk when trying to make us laugh, they were indeed using another language when speaking to each other; a language so far from most Asian and European Languages that it seemed like gibberish to a polyglot like myself.

It sounded nothing like English, French, German, or Spanish, and it was most definitely far from Mandarin and Japanese or any language I ever heard. In terms of actual vocabulary, it seemed to be totally different from what I was used to, maybe being closer to an esoteric language like Ancient Sumerian or the mythical, and strangely inconsistent, Enochian but after really listening to it for a few hours, it seemed to have the structure closer to Asian Languages, especially with the short, monosyllabic suffixes that seem to resemble our own honorifics.

I was sure that I would be able to be proficient enough in the language to make conversation in a few months, at least if I was able to talk in a few months.

Language aside, what really interested me these past few weeks was the discovery of magic, which like most things, began with an accident.

Up until now, I have been talking about what was good about being a baby, so lets begin with what is bad.

Of course, let's take away the obvious problems first; my body hated me more than anything ever could. I basically had no control over what I did and my mind could have been something entirely separate from my little baby body. Sure, I was trying to develop my motor skills again, but it was a process that involved much trial and even more error, and I must add that those were on good days.

If my body didn't want to move, it didn't move and no matter how much I say 'mind over matter' in this case matter won every single time. It goes without saying that bladder and bowel control were a few years out of my reach, I didn't have a set sleeping and eating schedule, and everything that bothered me did so enough that I was reduced to tears every few hours. On the _forty year old woman stuck in a baby side,_ things were less qualified as problems and more properly defined as inconveniences.

For example: aside from all the free time I'm normally allowed, time I've spent either feigning sleep and depressing myself, smiling at my new little pudgy human plush to-twin brother, or actually sleeping, being a baby is tiring. Now many may argue that some babies can be infuriatingly energetic, and yes that happens but the converse applied to me in that I always had just enough energy to stay awake for a few hours. And in those hours of brief lucidity, I was expected to play around mother, father, and auntie.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun; especially when mother was feeling particularly playful and we were brought to the garden, but two things ruined that for me.

First of all, my brother would always seem to cry whenever either mother, father, or auntie brought him outside the house, and as annoying as it was, I was more bothered by the fact that he didn't like it outside rather than the fact that a baby crying was real hell on the ears.

Another, and the more common problem plaguing me, was that whenever we would play, I would usually get father instead of mother. That wouldn't have been such a bad, if father wasn't... such a boy.

I was a baby for crying out loud, not some sort of ball you could play catch with!

Still, I guess his more... active version of play wasn't so bad if that was what lead me to using magic for the first time.

Thankfully, it was just after lunch and for some reason father was home instead of being out of the house like he usually was at this time. He might have been required to work on certain days every week, but at this time his schedule had been so erratic that I couldn't tell for sure. Still, I digress; father was home, and he had tired me out doing... dad things. Seriously, someone please tell him that when I scream with him, it's because I'm terrified, not having fun.

Anyway, he let me down after making sure I was sufficiently tired but as fate would have it, the heat in the room was something else that afternoon. If I was a bit less tired, a bit more patient, and a bit more lucid, I would have been able to distract myself from the discomfort, maybe even think myself to sleep and ignore the annoying way I seemed to be unable to sweat properly with a blanket on. If I was just a bit more tired, I would have fallen asleep as soon as I touched the soft fabric that was my blanket, and if my father remembered to open a window before leaving me be, I wouldn't have had a problem with the strange heat wave in the first place.

But as it was, I had the strangest sensation that the new universe was somehow conspiring against me to test my tenuous patience.

It was as if fate decided to do everything it can to get me do snap, and I would admit right here and now that it succeeded that afternoon.

As a baby, I wasn't in my right mind; compound that with fatigue, helplessness, annoyance, and irrational anger and you have a volatile combination of emotions that would manifest themselves in the most explosive way possible. Really, the only way it could have gotten any worse at that point -shut up; even if it does seem trivial, I was in a really bad place- was if someone rushed in and told me my father dropped and killed my little brother.

So I reacted appropriately.

"JUST DIE ALREADY, HEAT!"

Of course, it came out as a muffled shriek that didn't resemble any language I was thinking of using, but at that moment, all that mattered was the uncomfortable heat in the room.

And I really, really, _really_ wanted it gone.

Now.

Sometimes, people, no matter strange it might seem, want to escape reality; it's the reason why fiction is still a popular genre, why things like alcohol and drugs are consumed, why people tend to do anything that would make them forget what was happening to them. Escapism, as the word implies, is defined as the tendency to turn to things like fantasies to ignore the unpleasant reality; to seek what is not real to find relief from what was.

So in that moment; I believed with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my _very being_ that I could change the temperature of the room. I believed that if I wanted it, I could freeze the sun over with a snap of my fingers and evaporate the very oceans with but a simple thought. For a single moment, I returned to who I was as a child; a delusional little girl who believed that the world sat in the palm of my hand to do with as I wished.

Now at that point, most people would take a breath to center themselves, to move on from the very temporary insanity while reality reasserts it's dominance. Once those delusions of grandeur cross a person's mind, and the universe once more proves that it is the master and it doesn't owe anyone anything, everything is returned to order and that person returns to the struggle against what life is. Because most of the time, people could say and think whatever they want and more often than not, it doesn't change a thing.

Wishes shouldn't come true just because you wished for them.

The world shouldn't bend over backwards for you just because you do nothing but stay put and want something.

Thoughts are powerful in any form, but without articulation they are nothing but wisps of madness caged by the mind, and without action they are but fantasies known only to the thinker.

So the room shouldn't have been overcome by a chill so frigid that I had to snuggle deeper into my gossamer cocoon. The room should have stayed as hot as it always was, and I should have been annoyed, angry, tired, and defeated by the time I recovered from my lapse in focus and was returned to harsh, unforgiving reality. Absolutely nothing should have happened; my thoughts on the matter, no matter how strong, how desperate, should have had no effect since they were not acted upon.

But no one told the universe that.

No one told the universe to attend to the little girl who just had enough of the heat that overtaken the air around her.

That didn't stop the universe.

I fell asleep soon after the chill turned from surprising to pleasant, and I would only figure out when I woke up in time for my next feeding that I had managed to cast magic at the tender age of... two months.

I verified that fact by doing the very same thing; I entered the mindset of someone with middle school syndrome and _willed_ the air to cool, though this time I imagined something like a gentle breeze instead of trying to freeze the sun.

The result was a much more comfortable draft, though when I say draft it is more the cold air sinking due to the behavior of the denser mass rather than a wind actually blowing past me. Either way, the effect was the same; I had managed to somehow affect the world in a way that didn't require direct action. In short, I somehow managed to 'wish' for something and it was granted; I was able to affect the world with nothing but my will, my imagination.

No understanding of physics required; I wanted the air colder and so it was.

That was the last nail in the coffin; my parents and aunt spoke a language so alien that it couldn't be anything from earth, I was a baby despite having the memories of a woman who lived for over forty years, and I discovered that I could do magic.

I could have done a lot of things after such a startling revelation.

"Pa-pa" I driveled adorably, garnering an excited cheer from my father as he took me into his arms and rushed to my mother.

I'll think about what to do with my magic later.

I guess my father deserves some love every now and again.

* * *

 **AN**

 **There once was one, and now there are four; Mushoku Tensei is more popular than I though :))**

 **I'll be honest and say I'm just writing this now because my beta is still helping me correct Silly Songbird so that's put on the back burner for now. I don't think anyone who reads that reads this but just in case, that's the story.**

 **For the first few chapters, I'm thinking of going on to what the children do as children, since so many SI's just get to the meet of things and rob the story of more development than it should have. I mean, sure Magic and Power is a fun road to travel, but Rudeus only stayed in the house because he really was just too scared to leave it. I have a chance to fix that now, so instead of just munchkining around, he could have other relationships with other villagers.**

 **Don't worry, I plan to retain all canon characters, so our (my) favorite elf will still be included, though she may be included much earlier.**

 **If any of you guys like what Kaocakeman is doing by diversifying POV, then please just go there since I don't intend to switch POV from the main cast, (OC, Rudi, Paul, Zenith, and Lilia) just yet. He does good work, and is the reason why this thing is here in the first place.**

 **If you guys want to talk how magic works around here... well canon calls it 'omnipotent' so you're arguments against how OC casts are literally invalid.**

 **That's it; Review if you want to tell me anything (flames will be laughed at) and don't expect me to update this too often.**

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**


	3. Sam and Dave

**Chapter 3: Interlude: ...Something's Wrong with My Baby...**

* * *

Lilia

* * *

From the moment she helped deliver the twins of her Protege, Lilia knew something was wrong with them.

The delivery itself went without a hitch, and the babies, yes they were twins, were brought into the world with startling ease compared to her past experiences. For all intents and purposes, it should have been regarded as a resounding success, but ironically, what inspired her worry were the circumstances of the birth of the two adorable little ones. They were simply too distinct from each other, twin existences that were not mirrors but inverses of each other.

The first brought her relief when she, for it was a daughter, started to cry out. The infant's voice was high and it all but drowned out her mother's struggling, but to Lilia, that was indication that the child was healthy. Very quickly, Lilia wrapped the crying child in a blanket, settled her into her cradle and returned to attend to Zenith while her other child was struggling to escape the womb. At first she thought that the infant was just a normal child, and as such she would soon tire herself and fall asleep while she helped deliver her younger brother.

Lilia couldn't have been more wrong; the little girl cried until first light.

The twins were both born before dusk.

Her brother, as the second child was a boy, caused Lilia untold worry when he did the opposite and wouldn't make a sound. Like his sister before him, he was birthed with no complications, but when he finally cleared his lungs of the fluid that filled them while he was in the womb, he would't even open his mouth. Tenderly she examined the little boy, his eyes and mouth closed almost as if he was simply asleep; and though she found the warmth from his nose and his heartbeat, he remained as silent as the grave while his older sister cried into the afternoon.

This was when Lilia was faced with the problem; a child who obviously had something afflicting her as she screamed over her own mother and her brother who Lilia couldn't properly gauge seeing as he was deathly quiet. She knew that a baby only cried for so long a time if there was something wrong with them, but at the same time, silence could herald the same frightening complications. A child would not, _could not_ cry for such a long time, and seeing one force itself to was troubling indeed, while a silent child, especially at birth, was usually the first sign that there was something not quite right with the infant.

Strangely enough, it was the boy who brought her assurance first; the small child opened his eyes and looked at her with what looked to be wonder as he made a soft noise. She could only watch as the boy opened wide his bright green eyes and listen as strange sounds came out of his mouth. At first, she could have sworn that he was trying to tell her something, but the sound of his voice, much softer than his sister's insistent screaming, filled her with motherly satisfaction.

Lilia surrendered the child to the cradle, and thought of a time long past, before she was accepted into the service of her Protege.

No matter how many times she helped deliver children, she would always relish the thought that it was she who first met the infants. She was still a woman after all, and despite the mental conditioning they received to be able work at the palace the Main Guard always had a soft spot for the infants and the little children they were assigned to serve.

Lilia was torn from her thoughts were the screaming of the older child got even _louder,_ as the efforts of young couple, Paul and Zenith, were being wasted on the little girl.

She immediately regretted having set her brother next to her, as even the boy seemed to have been disturbed by the noise she was making.

Zenith was still too weak, giving birth to twins wasn't rare but it definitely wasn't common or any easier, and it seemed like it would need more than a mother's simple touch to calm the keening child. When Paul saw that his wife couldn't do anything to ease his daughter's wailing, he took her into his arms and rocked her gently, hoping that he would serve as a more comfortable post compared to his exhausted wife.

Having been once in the care of Paul's _tender mercies_ , Lilia wasn't surprisedthat the little girl grew louder in the arms of her father. Still, with how desperate and worried he looked when trying to calm his daughter, and given how he accepted her without a second thought, she couldn't allow herself to think in such a way. She could teach the young couple how to take care of their child when she wasn't making enough noise to wake the dead.

"Give her to me." She spoke calmly, though given that Paul's attention was solely on his daughter, it wasn't a surprise to her that he jumped at his touch. She didn't wait for him to assent, deftly but gently taking the small bundle of cloth from his arms before drawing the child to her chest and taking a good look at the disturbed infant.

Lilia could feel her heart tighten as she scrutinized the child and found nothing. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the child, no defects or problems that she could immediately see, and still she continued to scream and weep. All she could do was to try and comfort the child as best as she could, cradling it in her arms and humming a half forgotten lullaby into her delicate ears as she prayed to every god that existed that there was nothing wrong with the child.

To them, it took an eternity, but when the moon began to descend and the stars were beginning to fade, the child finally fell silent. Her breaths were far from deep and calm, and her sleep, though she was asleep, was fitful and distraught. When her brother seemed to have approached her at first, she redoubled her volume, but soon enough, when they reunited the two in resignation, she began to calm down.

Lilia found it very strange that the girl, though definitely the more energetic of the two, worried her more compared to her smaller and weaker brother. It was worrying; she only stopped when she was too exhausted to cry out, and even as she slept she moved around restlessly as if haunted by nightmares. It was a boon that her brother was so calm, that he wasn't disturbed by his twins movements and that he even seemed to hold her down while they both slumbered.

 _The Maid simply hoped they weren't so different that one of them would wake up the next morning..._

Lilia had heard about such a thing before, an old tale of two children born so different from each other that the end was too tragic to speak about.

Two total opposites; Twins, a boy and a girl. One blessed with tranquility that could easily be confused for weakness, while the other granted so much strength that she was suffering for it.

"Will she be alright, Lilia?" Paul asked with a soft voice, unwilling to disturb his children while the horizon began to brighten. He was tired, none of them caught a wink of sleep on account of the daughter, but more than that the worry ate at their very souls. "Will my daughter live?"

Lilia could not find it in her heart to tell them the Tale of Mirrored Twins and the fate that could await their children.

 _...While the other would never move again._

* * *

The boy who lived was to be called Rudeus.

The girl who did not die was named Candace.

Lilia, Zenith, and Paul were very much relieved when the weeks began to pass and Candace began to cry less and less into the night. The night terrors seemed to fade when she was allowed to sleep with her brother, and Rudeus was never one to be very fussy anyway. Comfortable peace settled in the household as the early weeks came and went, and soon enough the children were old enough to start spending more time awake than asleep.

At first, life continued as it usually did, with them rushing to Candace whenever she would make any sign of discomfort and Rudeus quietly clinging to her side, always there whenever she seemed to need anything. It was much better this way, since he was the easiest way to keep her happy if she didn't need to feed, change, or sleep, and if he needed anything, then he wouldn't have to cry for very long since they were all there. The children were inseparable after the first month, Candace made sure that they wouldn't try again after more hours of crying, and more often than not she or Zenith had to keep watch over to make sure they were always happy.

At least one of them were with the children at all times, as even Paul tried his best when his twins were involved, but the increased proximity with the children allowed her to notice something unnerving about them.

Indeed, it was a long and slow process, but as the weeks turned to months and the months slowly approached a year, it looked as if Rudeus was slowly getting stronger while Candace grew progressively weaker.

The little girl had the breath of a hurricane and a wail that could rival a keening dragon, but as the time passed she cried less and less and slept in more and more. She would cry when she was hungry, or when she needed to change, or when she was uncomfortable, but other than that, she seemed content to slumber the day away in her bed. It got to a point that they didn't need to keep watch over her anymore, since the night terrors she faced and whatever seemed to bother her was replaced by a strange lethargy that kept her in bed all of the time. She didn't even like being taken out of her little cradle though she was quite alright with being separated with Rudeus so long as they were reunited by the end of the day.

Rudeus himself seemed to have taken all the energy his sister once displayed, the boy being much more active now that he was allowed to grow. But to Lilia, that was just as worrying as Candace's weakness, especially when the son seemed to have inherited the more repulsive habits of his father. He had the eyes of the nobles when they would survey their maidservants and whenever she had to carry him, he would purposefully bury his face into her chest and pant like a deviant. He would peer at her and his won mother with strange eyes, she would call them lustful if she wasn't sure that he wasn't supposed to know what that meant.

His smile was the worst; the visage of a rapist so disgusting that even Paul couldn't compare in terms of depravity.

She sometimes had to remind herself that she was comparing a grown man to his own infant child, but that only made it worse since the image never faded.

In comparison, whenever she was awake, Candace was an angel. She would smile like a regular baby would, an image that would inspire nothing but love an adoration and doubly so considering she was a woman with strong maternal instincts. She would move slowly rather than rushing through everything when being tended to, and when Lilia carried her, she would snuggle into her and simply look content with herself. Gone was the infant who cried at every little thing, and sometimes nothing at all, and replacing her was a true bundle of joy whenever she was bothered to wake up.

Now Lilia was a very superstitious person, so Rudeus' perversion coupled by the circumstances of the twins' birth planted a seed of doubt in her. There were tales of demon children even back then, of course such fears would be aroused when all the signs were present.

 _What if there was something wrong with them? What if Rudeus was a demon child? What if he kills his sister?_

Such thoughts plagued her mind and forced her hand, and those same thoughts screamed even louder in her mind when her family's practices when warding against evil did nothing.

In another life, Lilia would have simply left Rudeus alone and come to accept him when he showed some promise, but with Candace in the immediate line of fire, she would not stand idly by.

Lilia found it very difficult to keep track of where Rudeus went once he learned to crawl, but she made sure that she kept an eye on Candace when she could. Slowly she began to see that Rudeus always made an effort to separate himself from his sister, at least when she was asleep since she would always try to stay with him whenever she wanted to play. She would notice that the boy, though he had the curiosity to rival any cat, mostly kept himself to the confines of the house; though he could be sometimes found looking out the windows he never once tried to exit the four walls of the house.

On rare occasions, when Candace was feeling particularly energetic, they would go to the edge of their room and watch the clouds pass them by, the little girl always so enraptured by the sight of the sky while the boy seemed perfectly happy to watch his sister smile.

And that's how she managed to forgive the 'demon child.'

He still acted more like a perverted old man than a child whenever she held him or his mother fed him, but slowly and surely such habits died down once he began to wander the house. She didn't see much of him then, she was still busy trying to protect his sister, but when the twins were together it was hard not to see the obvious affection that they seemed to naturally have for each other. The weakening child was always so happy with her brother and the child she thought was possessed acted more like the toddler he was when he was playing with his sister.

She was honestly shocked when she first found out that he spent most of his time in his father's study when he wandered out of her sight.

Rudeus appeared to be reading the book and comprehending it's contents, and that was the very first time she saw him as a child instead of a monster. He 'spoke' in a way she couldn't understand, and he perused the pages with purpose and intelligence in his eyes rather than malice of ill intent. In her eyes, this was no longer a child that needed to be cared for like his sister still was, this was a boy that could stand on his two feet as he looked at and learned about the world.

A stray thought crossed Lilia's mind, _what if he was just imitating Paul? What if Rudeus is a genius rather than a demon?_

It was a conclusion that had far too much merit; she knew very well how much children could see even if their parents thought they weren't looking, and with how brazen Paul always was, she wouldn't have been surprised if Rudeus managed to see. She knew, somewhere deep within her soul that she could have easily been fooling herself, but watching the children play and laugh day by day softened her heart.

 _There was no way a true demon could care of anything, especially not their own flesh and blood._

Satisfied, Lilia left Rudeus that day, keeping everything she learned within her heart as she continued to care for the twins. She would keep his secrets, if only to keep him from coming back to her and smothering his face in her chest. It seemed perfectly alright if he was reading, and she was sure that Paul wasn't stupid enough to keep the more 'dangerous material' where Zenith could easily find it. She would even take care of Candace more to allow him more time in Paul's study; there was a respectable number of books there after all, and as fast as he was at turning the pages, it didn't look like he would finish any time soon.

Thus did the imagined battle between the Guard Maid and the Demon Child come to a close.

Life at the Greyrat Household was much happier for her since then.

* * *

 **AN: Just an interlude; an expanded Lilia Chapter just like in the WN/LN to show some contrast. Already things are changing, with how magic is and what the family, specifically Lilia thinks of the twins so that would have an effect later in the story. I know it's a bit quick for a timeskip, but let's be real here; who wants to read a story about the life and times of week old babies? I have a cousin who, like Candace, seems happier to eat, sleep, get dirty, repeat than crawl around, explore the world, and be cute.**

 **I got the name Candace via Random Name Generator by the way, it seemed kind of obscure (other than Phineas and Ferb) so I just rolled with it instead of rerolling.**

 **If anyone is here for Silly Songbird: Sorry to disappoint but I'm taking a break from any serious writing for a while (RL should be a video game difficulty setting... oh wait, Left for Dead has it ha ha hah...) Again, this isn't really serious, just a way to unwind, destress, and explore the rich world of Mushoku Tensei (Read the Original, it got turned into an LN for a reason)**

 **There are more fanfics about this too so that's good; always nice to see others try their hand at making stories. =))**

 **(Copied from last time)** **That's it; Review if you want to tell me anything (flames will be laughed at) and don't expect me to update this too often.**

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**


	4. They Might Be Giants & Charli XCX

_**Chapter 4 ...Meet the Elements...**_

* * *

It's been a tough few years, just three really, but I finally had it.

I had almost perfect control over the magic I was granted and boy was that something.

Now, normally when you think of fantasy world magic, one either goes Fireball, or maybe Cure, all the way up to True Resurrection, Time Stop, and Ultima or something like that.

Those old magic games only wish they were as diverse as the real thing.

After three years of experimentation, I could conclude that magic was a whole different animal compared to what I was used to.

Magic, back in the old world, was something with a set of distinct rules, regulations, limitations, and mechanisms that were strictly adhered to. It was something caged, limited, defined, much like science grew to be, but magic was something man mad than the phenomenon that just was. No matter where you looked, magic could only be created by people, defined by people, and in a way produced by people. It was something that was confined to the human imagination and no matter how vast you can claim that to be, it was presented as something limited or too complex to be understood by the public.

Since magic was something publicly consumed, or it catered to a lot of people through media like video games, table top, general literature, maybe anime and more, it had to be limited or at the very least easy to understand. For throwaway one shots, or short series, it was as simple as the world had a certain set of allowable actions, and for those like the long running franchises dove a bit more deeply into their magic systems. The biggest ones like Gundam had an entire pseudoscience developed for the Universal Century, and on the magic side there was Type Moon and all the confusion those systems brought with them, but it was very rarely that magic is explored so deeply.

I didn't really care about those things, honestly.

Magic, the way I saw it back then, was always in the form of a game of some sort. Fireball, Ice Shards, Cure, Lightning, Meteor Swarm, Tsunami, Flare, and all those other techniques were supposedly possible but if you look at it, it's kind of limited. You always saw the same fireball, the same flare, the same meteor swarm no matter what, as if it couldn't be used any other way. There's always a rigidity to it, a repetitiveness that couldn't be overcome because the game was made like that. Magic back then was structured in the same way physical moves like Cross Slash, Dolphin Kick, Megaton Punch, and Zantetsuken were structured and that made it... fake.

Because that wasn't realistic at all. You didn't need to conform with a specific stance to create a move to eliminate the One Winged Angel, it wasn't like a specific diagonal slash surpassing space and time was the only way to kill a Witch that wanted to End the World. Those were just structured, animated, _invented_ that way because it was easier to sell, and not because it was in any way accurate to real life. But that was fine, because it was all a game, it was all fake anyway. It was a way to pass the time, to entertain, and that meant that no matter how fake it was, you wouldn't really complain because you were after having fun more than the magic system in itself.

Magic back then was a fantasy and it didn't need to imitate real life because it didn't really exist.

But Magic _here_ was real life and the truth is, I couldn't exactly define what magic was.

Like the way you didn't just take a step the same way each an every time, magic was variable.

Like the way you needed strength and endurance to run very fast for a long time, magic took energy.

Best of all, like the way you needed to write a name several times as a child to be able to have your parents read it, magic took practice.

And as a doctor, the joke is my penmanship sucks by the way, I needed a lot of practice.

Magic was confusing in that sometimes things worked counter-intuitively, like fire worked similarly to wind, even if it should have shared more qualities with water and earth since all three are strictly made of matter and fire is energy.

Magic was flexible too, in the way that it would conform to what you wanted and sometimes acted on its own, like how it was easier to flash freeze my... messes than it was to get my blanket off of my body.

This one time, I found that I could mold a _cloud_ into any shape I wanted, but for the life of me, I couldn't lift a simple _chair_ with my mind.

So Magic was confusing, we'll settle with that, so in an attempt to make things clearer, we'll start back at the very beginning of my self study on the subject.

* * *

You would not believe how excited I was when I had the opportunity to practice magic again.

I could recall it as if it were yesterday; everyone was gone for some reason, Lilia-oneesama was in her room, and cute little Rudi decided that he would rather sleep with mother and father that night instead of his clingy onee-chan.

I learned our names, mine's Candace by the way, when I was around two years old but I'm getting side tracked a bit.

The time the was late in the evening, the day after I confirmed that I had something close to ice or wind powers and I was so ready to try to do what I did again. The room was absolutely empty, quiet in the way only a child's room could be when everything was still and absolutely nothing stirred. It was kind of creepy how nothing made a sound, but that just meant there was no one there to discover what I was doing.

I didn't want a repeat of the first time. As brief as it was, I felt some parts of my skin freezing over with just how cold the air that passed over me was, and I was sure as hell that I didn't want to risk being a babycicle, _again._ When I tried magic for the second time, I didn't exactly cause the breeze that came, I just cooled the air enough that free convection did its work via the science of colder air being denser and thus wanting to fall.

This time, I imagined something expanding rather than contracting. I didn't want it to get hotter or anything, or for this to make any sound, but between my blanket and my body I imagined the air exploding outwards. I didn't want anything too strong, nothing too flashy, just a burst of wind strong enough to blow my blanket into the ceiling without hurting me.

What happened next was just what I expected.

It worked.

I would admit that it was a bit weird seeing my blanket suddenly jump from my body and softly thud when it struck the wooden ceiling a short distance away, but the sense of accomplishment and wonder was just so addicting that I didn't care. It was curious how I felt the air ripple, outward, like the wind was pushing in every direction except towards my body.

The scientist it me screamed that air pressure _shouldn't_ work like that, but the inner child was just so giddy that I WAS A FREAKING MAGICAL GIRL.

Well, not really, but I could magic and that had to count for something.

It was also fun, hypnotizing even, watching my blanket float down from the ceiling, the beloved piece of cloth opening up as it descended lazily like a small parachute in the silent night as it swayed to and fro...

And fell outside the confines of my crib.

I sighed in a way only a disappointed child could.

I was two months, going on three, of course I would still be sleeping in a crib and because my stupid baby muscles haven't developed well enough to climb out yet, so I was stuck with my blanketlessness.

Alright, at the very least I proved that I had relatively good control over whatever air was. I could apparently control where pressure was applied and where force was just absent, if the air flowed and where it remained still, and how much the air would vibrate or just how hot or cold it could be. It was just a small amount of air, but I wasn't really keen on going out to see if I could create a hurricane just yet.

Still, I didn't have a blanket and unlike last time, It was getting cold. Sure I could make a warm breeze, I actually just did, but I didn't want to stay awake just keeping myself warm or wake up in the middle of the night to find myself shivering. I wanted my blanket, I needed my blanket, and right now, I just couldn't reach it.

Unless, of course, Magic could save me.

I closed my eyes.

In my head, I imagined myself reaching out and lifting the blanket off of the ground and bringing it to the edge of my crib. I Imagined the form of the blanket rising from the dark wooden floor and taking to the air where it would glide its way towards me and settle on the railings of my wooden cage.

When I opened them to look at what my magic wrought if found the edge of the crib surprisingly blanketless.

Even if I looked at it closely, it was clear that the damned piece of cloth refused to move.

Well, since it worked the first time...

Releasing All Limits...

Bending the Fabric of Reality...

ENTERING GOD MODE...

Within the confines of my mind, I was an all powerful Godess, and it was my will that the blanket be rescued from the darkness that enveloped the room and returned to my embrace. There was nothing beyond my reach, the very laws of the universe were under my control, all things bent to my will, and I wanted my blanket off of the floor and back in my crib.

Not just that, I wanted _it_ to float.

In the way I controlled the air, and _just the air,_ I wanted my blanket to be lifted up, as if someone was holding the entire thing at the same time, and carried to my crib.

That's when I felt the drain.

I used to run quite a bit in the old world and the familiar feeling of exhaustion washed over me win an undeniable wave. It was as if I ran an Ironman Triathlon again, except this time in the body of a two month old baby instead of a woman in the best condition of her life.

I could feel my heart seize, the steady heartbeat all but stopping for a moment as my body simply gave up.

My lungs somehow stopped, not even strong enough to keep my breath from passing helplessly from my lips.

I couldn't move all of a sudden, but I could feel my entire body scream with the pain that came from overexertion.

Then came the darkness.

I couldn't contain my joy when I woke up just before dawn with a blanket loosely draped over my tiny form.

* * *

A couple of nights after that incident, while I was watching the fabric of my blanket flutter as it flew through the air, I had a few more conclusions when it came to magic.

The first was that magic used a certain amount of mental energy, or let's just call it MP for simplicity's sake.

Everything that was done using magic took up energy in the same way doing anything took energy. The only good thing was that magic apparently drew from another source of energy, since when I came to after fainting, _again,_ my body didn't ache like it did after I accomplished the Ironman. I didn't really know why that was the case but I was willing to take that little blessing with a grateful smile.

I wasn't in pain and I wasn't about to start complaining about that.

Anyway, using magic took energy, and the amount of energy required depended on what I wanted to do as well as how many times I've done it before. It was like any other physical task in that way, it took practice before it could become something like second nature or at least something easier. So the reason I fainted from controlling air and trying to telekinetically lift my blanket was because it was the first time I tried doing either of those things.

It wasn't effortless yet but I could do both pretty well for a few minutes each, what I mean to say is that I can lift the blanket both by _lifting the blanket itself_ or by _taking control of the air and using that_ to manipulate the blanket. I guess the difference lies in what I'm _holding,_ like if I took the blanket, I was writing with a pen and paper, and if I took the air it was like I was writing through a computer and printing what I wrote. Neither was easier than the other after a couple days of practice but something in my gut told me I was improving since it got easier and easier each time I did either took control of the air or picked up the blanket with my mind.

I willed the blanket to stop it's nightly flight as I prepared for my next experiment. Since I was able to pick up the blanket and make it fly around like a magic carpet, as in it was spread out as if it was on a flat surface, I thought I was ready to try and manipulate the fabric itself. What I mean to say was this time I was going to try and see if I could fold the blanket with nothing but my mental powers.

I'll cut to the chase and say that it took me another three days to figure out how to do that.

No, it wasn't because I didn't know how to fold a blanket. It was just because each fold I made, either telekinetically or by manipulating the air was _hard._ It took years of practice before I could twirl a pair of chopsticks, simultaneously, on one hand and that was when I was dexterous enough to eat with them. I was trying to do something leagues harder since I had only the most basic idea of how magic worked and how I could control it.

Another lesson, though one I learned much earlier, was that magic seemed to have a built-in safety mechanism.

This little tidbit came to me when I was trying to exploit the telekinetic part as well as my real lack of alone time in the house. Ever since my birth, ever since I could remember, I had someone beside me whether it was my older sister, my mother, my twin brother, or my father. I loved them all, three of them in the way a child loves everything and that special little angel in the way a twin would basically imprint on her counterpart, but they presented me with a problem ever since I figured out that I could use Magic.

I couldn't practice with them around.

I was torn right then and there about the two paths I could take.

With magic came the excitement of day to day life since I could basically do something other than eat, sleep, soil myself, and get changed. On the other hand it was kind of obvious since there is definitely nothing normal about 2 month old baby bending the laws of the universe.

I could either chose to contain myself, practice only at night, and bask in my family's adoring love, or risk having fun screwing with the laws that I knew to be unbreakable, but risk looking like a monster in front of the only people I had in this new, unfamiliar world.

It was poetic that Magic solved that problem for me, and in doing so, taught me quite a bit about itself.

I had decided to try one last magic spell before promising myself that I would only practice at night when the entire house was asleep. I focused everything I had into that one final spell, to try and lift everything in the room, the table, the chairs, a wardrobe, and of course, the crib I was resting in. More than that, I wanted to lift everything in the room a single centimeter off of the ground, just to test out my control of magic.

I thought I had practiced enough with the blanket, but the pain, even worse than the first time I tried to levitate something, told me that I was being much too conceited.

And if that wasn't bad enough, apparently my mother thought that it was the perfect time to check on me.

I fainted, the image of her shock burned into my mind as I lost consciousness.

It was when I woke up hours later, to a worried and relieved family that I found out that I wasn't caught. Furthermore, when I tried to strip myself of my blanket, even while my adorable little angel was embracing me and found it surprisingly easy was when I realized that magic even when forcibly canceled, still brought about growth.

It was something like an extremely effective isometric exercise, as if pushing against the wall with all your might suddenly could make you much stronger. Even better, I could continue striving to do the impossible, even around my family, confident that there will be no effect and still continue to grow stronger even if there is no effect.

As for the reason for this phenomenon, I did have a conjecture but nothing too concrete.

Using magic was something like an exercise in a way, probably the best analogy would be vertical jumps rather than pushing a weight. Even if you jump as high as you can, or use as much MP as you can, there will be no effect if you don't have enough, or you can't jump high enough to reach the next platform. Still, you use energy, and that means that even if there's no apparent effect, or you didn't reach the next platform, there's still some growth there and in time, you'll be able to cast the spell after trying again and again.

So that I never create an effect, I just have to keep trying to do more and more impossible things, and that means that I can train even when I'm surrounded by everybody, and get even better results when I can produce the effects when I'm alone.

I didn't even have to worry about using so much energy or MP that I would die since the current mechanism for casting Magic was my mind. That meant that even if it got too impossible, which it the expected outcome, the resulting MP insufficiency would result in tremendous, excruciating, and unbearable pain, leading up to the loss of consciousness and the automatic termination of the attempted spell. That was the built-in safety allowing me to train to my heart's content.

Another, definitely useful side benefit was that I could basically shut down my brain on command, I just needed to try to lift the entire two story house, including the foundations, and I was out like a light.

The only downside was the pain; no matter how many times I've lost consciousness that way, it _never_ hurt any _less._

If anything, it seemed to hurt _worse_ as time went by.

But I guess that was fine.

After all no pain, no gain.

* * *

Side Story: ...Boys...

* * *

Paul

* * *

Paul Greyrat's favorite time of the day was nightfall.

After a hard, or boring, day of patrolling the surrounding area with Rawls and the other guards, he would return home to a loving wife and his two adorable children.

Dinner was always a normal affair.

Lilia would always speak first, reporting on what happened in the house and specifically what was going on with Candace and Rudeus during the day, and Paul would always silently thank the gods for saving sending him old teacher and saving his wonderful twins.

Zenith would go next, detailing what she did in the church or what happened with the children since she would stay home and watch over them whenever Lilia needed to go the the market to restock the pantry. It was always a joy to listen to his wonderful wife go through the day, either helping the people around the village, praying for them, healing them, or when she would talk about just how much she loved the beautiful children she gave birth to.

He would often just talk about what Rawls had been doing all day; even if there was a monster attack, or a particularly fierce bandit troupe going around he always tried to spare his family of the danger he faced every day. He didn't really care that Zenith was his equal as an Ex-S-Ranked Adventurer and Lilia would still be able to best him with the blade had she never been injured, but it was a man's duty to care of the women and children in his life.

Dinner was always pleasant, if not particularly interesting, but the main event would always come immediately after.

Paul was a lover of women, and particularly the type of women with beautiful faces, voluptuous bodies, and large breasts. In the past he wasn't exactly picky, and he had managed to bed numerous women who possessed at least one of those three qualities, specifically the breasts if he was honest. He was a pervert who didn't really think things through, going from one woman to the next as long as they were willing and he was enjoying himself.

Paul firmly decided to give that pleasure up when Zenith, in his eyes the undisputed most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes on, agreed to sleep with him so long as he would take responsibility and marry her.

For her, he promised never again to invite any other woman into his bed and stay true to his wife.

It was a fact that Paul simply adored his wife, and for the longest time he found himself lusting only for her.

So it was quite a surprise when Paul realized that he was currently happiest when his wife was ignoring him.

Every night, after they would have dinner, Paul would watch his wife enter her own little world as she fed their children.

And it was beautiful.

There was a quality Zenith would gain when she spoke about a pair of small infants she loved very much, it was on another level entirely when she was taking care of them herself.

Paul was still surprised buy how different she looked whenever she would carefully lift either Rudeus or Candace up to her breast to suckle. She didn't even seem to notice that he was there, for a brief moment in time, her world was made of a mother and a child, and Zenith in all her beauty was simply resplendent. He had no words to describe her face, her smile, her eyes, her everything when it was just her and one of her babies.

And he could never bring himself to speak until she was done with both of them.

Paul was sure that if he blew out the candles, hid the magic stones, closed the curtains, killed the moon and the stars, his wife would still be able to light up the room with that smile whenever she held both of the twins.

And every day, at that moment, he's reminded why every mistake, every fight, every regret he had in life was worth it if it was to get to this point.

Of course, after Zenith was done, it was his turn.

After feeding, the twins grew a bit more excited than sleepy so to tire them out, Paul would tell them stories.

He would either read to them the tale of Three Swordsmen, or that of Perugius, but sometimes he would tell them tales of his own adventures.

His children were too young to understand his words, but they would cheer when he cheered, they would fall quiet when he whispered, and they would jump back when he surprised them. The may not have taken in the entirety of his stories but watching them have fun, watching them react to what he told them with giddy pleasure was enough for him. More importantly, it was enough to fill them with the sense of adventure and tire them out.

They could never finish the whole story, any story for that matter, but he didn't really care about that. His children always entered the realm of dreams with smiles on their faces, ready to greet what wonders that awaited them.

Then, when they were finally asleep, he would go over to her and hold her like there was no one else in their world and think this was absolutely worth anything and everything he gave up.

Sometimes, if his wife would let him, he would go further, though they would always make sure to put the children to bed and make absolutely no noise whenever they tried for another child.

Though it made no difference, on the nights when he would hold his wife in bed after a tiring day, or on the nights they would lie there and bask in each other's afterglow, he knew he cherished the image of his amazing wife holding his beautiful children the most.

It was the joy of finally being a father after all.

With that, he'd fall asleep, knowing he'd have more than enough strength to face the next day.

* * *

Rudeus

* * *

Rudeus Greyrat's favorite time of the day was the early morning.

In the first place, he was just getting used to walking up with his cute twin sister hugging him but after a month things somehow changed.

His loud, clingy, energetic sister suddenly turned lethargic all of a sudden.

Rudeus helped raise his youngest brother in the old world, so even he knew that when a baby suddenly changed from being noisy and energetic to suddenly being quiet and tired all the time, something could be wrong.

It could be a disease, a virus, a random infection cause by a large number of things. From what he knew, the world seemed much less modern than he would have liked so his twin sister could easily be suffering from some nutrient deficiency, or she couldn't take it since the world was so dirty and she was getting sick, or maybe she was just born with something wrong with her.

Rudeus couldn't really do anything about it as a baby.

All he could do, just like in the old world, was watch from the sidelines and keep hoping, keep praying, that things would somehow get better.

The sister who could keep him, and the rest of the household, awake by crying was all but gone now.

But something magical would happen in the hours of the morning, just as the sun would peek from the horizon.

On some days, there would be a miracle and his sister would wake up ahead of him.

Rudeus himself would stir, and when he would open his eyes, he would be greeted by the excited form of his sister looking up at the changing sky.

Their crib was close to the wall and just below the window so from that angle, they were treated with the sight of a beautiful sunrise. He wouldn't notice at first, but slowly he would see that there was never a cloud in the path of the sun or lingering on the horizon when those wondrous moments came. No, the clouds were always high in the sky, ready to capture the emerging light of the sun and reflect the shades of purple and orange and yellow that would come with the rising of the sun.

He never really thought anything of it, just that his sister really loved watching the clouds and how they changed color and shape on those rare days.

She would always have a little bit more energy on those days, to play with him, mother, and father, though sadly, it would never last after their mother fed them.

When she didn't wake ahead of him, she slept like the dead, barely breathing and all curled up in that blue blanket of hers. On those days, when not even the light of the sun could wake her up, he would do is best and wait, wrapping his arms around her and giving her all the warmth his little body could muster, hoping it was enough to sooth her pain.

Those days were harder to predict, sometimes she would be able to last the entire day under the watchful gaze of their older sister -or was that their maid?- or their mother. On other days, she was content to sleep the entire day away, waking up at random times to cry for feeding or changing, but then after that, she would freeze and pass out like a drained battery.

On those days Rudeus was scared, hoping against hope that his sister didn't have anything wrong with her and that she would eventually get better.

Thankfully, she always did.

In either instance, she would always smile at him, either when she finally notices him sneaking up behind her to watch the sky, or when she wakes up within his embrace and snuggles in closer.

Rudeus always wanted a little sister, for those little moments, those wonderful smiles, and the undeniable warmth only a child could offer. He simply adored her when she smiled at the vaguely shaped clouds, or laughed when their father told them stories in a language he was still trying to learn, or when she simply slept soundly, on the afternoons that their mother would hold them in the light.

It was only half a year since they were born and he couldn't imagine his day without those mornings.

So he drew strength from that smile.

Rudeus wanted to live a new life, a better life now that he was given a second chance, another life to actually make his own instead of throwing away like he did before. He promised himself to live seriously this time, and now, more than that, he wanted to be the best brother he could be so that just in case the worst would come to pass, he could take care of his sickly sister.

He would learn faster, he would work harder, he would be better because there was a chance that he wasn't just living for his own sake.

And he was strangely alright with that.

Now all he needed to do was figure out how he could climb out of the crib again.

* * *

 **AN: Hello, I just felt like writing this one, and who knows maybe I'll get another chapter out in quick succession (unlike Silly Songbird, sorry guys).**

 **Well, the main story here is kinda boring, just another magic training montage and all that, as well as some weirdness when it comes to MT magic system (It's canonically OMNIPOTENT, so I can't wait to have some fun with that) but the real inspiration for this segment was the fun I had last week.**

 **I met with a friend, and she got as sister quite recently (That little girl is so adorable that I could die) and one time over the week I had time to ask her what she loved about the new baby. She reminded me of Rudeus, smart, kind of wacky, a bit conceited, but goodnatured, so I had to write that one out.**

 **Also I had time to ask my dad what he loved most about having me and my siblings and it's my sister's birthday coming up soon so I wrote out that Paul bit as well. No, before anyone asks, my own father is a great man who would never even think of looking at any other woman besides my mother. He is awesome, and I won't anyone say otherwise.**

 **Thanks for the reviews, and the next one, I'm writing it right now actually, involves the days leading to and some parts during Roxy's entrance. I remember being allowed out of the house to go play when I was three and a half so I'm using that since even if medieval people would allow their children out sooner, Candace looks kind of sickly here.**

 **To SyQadelic: I don't really think Lilia was that bad of a person; she was better than Paul in my opinion since it was stated that he started flirting with her first. It might be true that she seduced him in the end, but it was stated that it wouldn't have happened if Paul didn't start... well... being Paul. That doesn't really excuse what happened, and Zenith is a freaking saint, but I would put more blame on Paul for that one. And after that she becomes the perfect support for Aisha, Zenith, and Rudeus after.**

 **I'd like to once more take the time to thank you guys for reading, as well as expanding the fandom here; there really isn't a lot of MT fanfics yet so we're getting there.**

 **Also, can someone tell me if we're using the Mushoku Tensei/ 無職転生 Tag instead of the Another-World-無職転生/ Tag so there'll be less confusion there.**

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**


	5. Blink 182

_**Chapter 5 ...All The Small Things...**_

* * *

 **AN: So I've gotten into the rhythm with this so I might let one more chapter out in a few days then get back to writing Silly Sonbird.**

 **MT is just so light and fluffy in the beginning that it's easy to fall in love with. The fact that until the third volume, most of the conflicts in the story are really down to earth and slice-of-lifey really makes it easy to write. It also helps me look at my own family for experiences and going down memory lane, when you have a family that's as bubbly and somewhat suffocating as mine, is always an experience.**

 **Just to clarify, I'm basing a few of these things on experience, obviously, but this story is an OC rather than an SI. The character's background is one of the siblings of Rudeus, japanese name never given, from the real world and I took the story from there.**

 **There will be a new character introduced next chapter so be prepared for her arrival.**

 **Also, 100% I'm going to continue working on Silly Songbird next week so be a bit more patient, everyone who's checking this out for that.**

 **From now on, the AN's here will be before the story, as well as kind of spoiler free, for all the people who want Silly Songbird but got this instead.**

 **And without further ado...**

* * *

Something weird happened over dinner.

It was just another normal family meal, with Lilia - that was my older sister no matter what Rudi said, that adorable little dolt- across us and Rudi at my side. Mother and Father were sitting at the heads of the table, or rather the two ends, and everything was peaceful.

Boring.

So I decided to shake things up in the way only a child could.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Daisy?"

"Who's bigger?"

"You were born at the same time, Daisy."

"Daisy's right, Mother. Who _is_ bigger?" And suddenly the room stopped after Rudi chimed in.

It was honestly a meaningless question, one that served no real purpose but it looked like all three adults were having trouble answering it.

It was obvious Rudi was larger, as well as stronger given that he was the boy but the question of who was older, or who was first was something that bothered my idle thoughts when I wasn't passing out due to insufficient MP.

You know what, let's just call that Mana Burn for now.

Anyway, Rudi was starting to be able to walk now that we were around three years old. I could do so as well, but given the circumstances, I was definitely weaker due to how much more time I spent resting my head after each Mana Burn. He could also read too and sometimes I see him wandering the house with his nose in one of the books Father reads to us.

We were kept apart for most of the day now, though we still the same bed at night and during the day Rudi would go all around the house, even upstairs to sate his childlike curiosity. The little angel even started speaking ahead of me, not because he had forty years of knowledge in his head, but because he was _just that good_ at learning things.

I could see the signs, I saw them before in my old life, that my brother was a genius and while I couldn't be prouder of my favorite body pillow, seeing him grow drove me further into my experimentation. He wasn't the one burdened with the knowledge of a past life, and even if he was all around better than me in everything, I couldn't help but want to protect the little boy I fell in love with ever since I laid my eyes on him.

Still, the harder I practiced, the further I reached, meant that I was steadily getting stronger, but it also meant that I spent more and more time in bed than playing like Rudi could. Sure, I was recovering from each Mana Burn faster each time I did it, but I just used that time to practice even more instead of trying to spend time with my beloved brother.

Maybe I thought that if I knew who was older, or who was expected to hold more responsibility, I would know what to do next.

I mean, medieval culture was something very patriarchal, which meant that women served a lesser role in society. If Rudi was expected to bear the family name, then I would support him with everything I had and maybe I could take it a bit easier. If I needed to support him, then I needed to tone down what I could to rather than just keep getting better and better. I hated it, but my younger brother... always resented me for being 'smarter' even if he just put in less effort than I did.

And that would be enough to settle my thirst for knowledge; I wanted to know more about the magic of this world, but I didn't want of have to miss Rudi's formative years, his precious childhood days, to gain that knowledge. We were three now, even back then I remember what I used to do with my older brother when I was three, and I wanted to make memories with my twin right now.

"You were born first, Candace, though the time between you and Rudeus is so small that I don't think it matters."

And just like that Lilia-oneesama killed any thoughts of slacking off.

She was already a perfect lady, always respectful to our parents, a mistress of the house, the kitchen, and the scullery, and if I wasn't seeing things she seemed to bear herself in a manner much like Father; a trained warrior ready despite the surrounding peace. If I was going to follow in her footsteps, become a great woman worthy of my family, and play with my brother in my free time then I needed to work even harder on the magic I knew.

I might have boasted perfect control but that just meant that I could draw the exact likeness of a chrysanthemum, down to the smaller details, with nothing but the sky as my canvas and the clouds as my paint. Not just that, I could take a perfect cloudless sky and fill it with a garden of flower-shaped clouds as well, then erase them all again in a couple of seconds.

But even after all that, I still couldn't lift the chair, and just the chair, for more than a couple of minutes. I guess I should be grateful that I could finally lift the damned thing but it was still mind boggling.

Why was manipulating water particles a thousand times smaller than a raindrop, in such a way that they would create images as detailed as the symbol of our old emperor and not just clump up and fall like rain, anywhere between two to eighteen _kilometers away..._ easier than _holding up a single chair_?

It made no sense!

"Why do you ask, Daisy?" Mother called me Daisy just so it would sound like Rudi I guess. That's the only reason I can think of since Candace has the same amount of syllables as Daisy and my parents seem like people to give nicknames if they thought that it would make it easier to remember.

I needed to fake a smile, they already thought I was a sickly child with how much time I spent resting, I didn't want them to start fussing over me now.

"I just wanted to know if Rudi was just my _big_ brother or if he was _older_ brother." I sent my twin a smug smile even as he replied with his own look of bemusement.

Of course it didn't make a difference to him yet, but that wasn't his burden to bear.

"You'll always be my little sister, Daisy." My adorable little brother called from beside me with an innocent smile that I almost regretted not being able to reach out and ruffle his hair without standing on my seat. "I'll protect you like a Hero in one of Father's stories, so don't worry."

Okay, that was too much for me to bear.

"Daisy, don't you dare-"

Too late, I had already pulled legs up in a crouch and jumped into my brother's defenseless form. I burned the image of his absolutely adorably shocked face into my mind as I hurtled towards him at speeds he obviously didn't expect from the sickly little girl of the family and tackled him from his chair and...

"It's alright, Zenith." Into Father's waiting arms, the man himself giving his wife a dazzling smile even as I wrapped my arms around my brother, the two of us laughing all the while. "I got them."

My sister sighed, as if expecting this to happen, though I could make out the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips.

My mother was frowning almost on the verge of berating us, though the longer I laughed, tickling my brother as we gave our Father a hard time holding on to us, the harder it was for her to stay angry.

That night, I promised myself that I would protect this happiness.

No matter what.

* * *

I think I should have known something was going to happen when I was feeling a bit less tired one day.

Sure, my recovery rate has gone up significantly and I only needed something like half an hour or so of rest instead of the half a day I needed when I first began, but I always ended up a bit sluggish whenever I woke up after a Mana Burn. No matter how long it took for me to recover, my head hurt enough that I had to stay in bed for at least another hour before I could either go on with my life, or try using magic again.

I tried inducing two Mana Burns in quick succession, but we don't talk about what happened after that.

Okay, I would admit that my magical power seemed to have grown immensely after, but it was just not as efficient as my current routine.

That had nothing to do with being bedridden for three days, no sir.

Anyway, there I was being a bit more cheerful that I had a bit more energy than I usually had. I didn't have anything planned that day, and for once everyone was still in the house so I decided to do what children my age normally do.

I began looking for my favorite playmate.

We didn't play often, my brother and I. We slept together and woke up together. Sometimes, we would watch the sunrises or I would mold the clouds into vague shapes and we'd just laugh as how 'nature' and 'chance' would somehow allowed such a thing to happen, but we rarely saw each other during the day. I was trying to change that now that I was recovering faster and had no intention of rendering myself helpless for another three days, so I started interrupting his reading time.

We've been doing that for a while now, making it something like a game where he would sequester himself somewhere and I would try and look for him.

Over the twelve times I tried looking for him, I found that there were three likely places he would hide.

Rudi loved the gardens, but since mother wasn't laughing as she tended to her beloved bushes and saplings, that must have meant that Rudi was somewhere within the house. Father was training, I just caught a glance of him from the window, and Lilia-oneesama was in the kitchen so that must have meant that Rudi when upstairs to read again. He was in our room just a day ago, the last time I tried hunting him down, which meant that he was probably playing in our Father's study.

I've only seen him hide there once before, but it was always worth a shot to look.

I was upstairs as well, having just awakened from my last Mana Burn, so it wasn't exactly a long journey, but I wasn't the fittest child or the most energetic so it took a few moments.

That was when I felt it.

Having experimented with magic for three years, I liked to say that I had a vague idea about what it was and a bit on how it actually worked. Or at the very least, I knew how _I_ managed to work it and a bit about what _I_ could and could not do with it. With regards to other people, I've only felt someone else use it whenever my mother reached out and tried to heal me the first time I passed out in front of her.

It was a pleasant sensation, like something soothing, something soft, and something warm passing over you when you were in pain. I could feel that it was something like a cross between a hug when you're about to cry and the feeling of a headache melting away after a cup of warm hot chocolate and total silence. There was a strength behind it though, like the one hugging you was a polar bear, or the silence that came was because anything that would try to annoy you was scared of the giant polar bear giving you a protective hug, but it wasn't at all uncomfortable.

Mother was the perfect refuge, unyielding strength and graceful gentleness rolled into one warm, cheerful, loving package.

I'm sure she's been trying to heal me whenever she finds me asleep because after a few months I was sort of familiar with what I could only imagine to be her magical signature.

I wouldn't try to put it into words yet, but suffice to say, it was a wonderful feeling and a thing of comfort whenever her presence made a blip on my magical radar.

Sure, that magical radar stretched only three feet from me, but now her hugs were just so much better.

Anyway, behind the door to my Father's study, I felt something else, something darker.

I didn't know how I could have missed it when it felt just slightly less powerful than my mother's wonderful presence but it was far from the pleasant caress hers was.

This one was a monster trying to push its way free from a cage that tried to contain it, or a madman flailing around in the dark and trying to make sense of what was around him. It wasn't overpowering, but it wasn't weak either, sitting just beyond the point that made it worrying but not so beyond me that I was brought to my knees. There was a certain depth to it though, with a flavor that reminded my of the open ocean whenever storms would brew, the winds would pick up, and the waves would come to test the worthiness of ships.

A sobering thought came forth and my blood ran could; there was possibility that my brother was in that room, together with whatever was in there and that would mean...

I couldn't even complete that thought before my body sprang into action, and my mind called upon all the power I allowed to me

There was no more time for subtlety, and with all the strength I could muster I slammed the door open to confront whatever manner of creature dared step into my house and _threaten my precious little brother_.

 _"-vanity-"_

In place of a door there was a portal, but instead of leading to my Father's study, the other side of this shining gate held the very depths of the ocean. The torrent was as blue as the oceans deepest depths when it emerged, flung forward by the immense pressures that threatened to crush anything that ventures close. I didn't know how powerful riot hoses were, but I was sure than none of the were able to chew through wood the pillar of water did.

I honestly didn't know much about architecture, but the walls of the house weren't exactly thin, or hollow. The wall around the door was at least thirty centimeters or a foot thick, I should know since I was just there, and whenever I would grasp at the house in an attempt to lift it, I could feel how solid it was.

It made sense since medieval houses were either made of wood or stone and mortar, but I don't think it would have made a difference as the torrent of water pulverized hardwood into fine dust without losing a bit of momentum.

 ** _No_**

The pillar of water decimated the doorway and the surrounding walls as if they were made of thin paper but an invisible parted the torrent as if it was even _less_ than nothing _._ The torrent was divided before it could come close to touching me, but momentum still wasn't lost. Even if it passed around me, leaving me unharmed, there was enough force in whatever was left to utterly destroy the upper level of my home.

Not on my watch.

 _ **Stop**_

But the water wasn't even allowed to travel that far. I could hear the water as it flew past, I could feel the air being churned up as it rocketed from the center of my Father's study to the upper level of our house, but I could also _feel_ my magic taking over and forcing the water away. I couldn't stop the flow, not because I felt weak but I knew that more than anything I needed to take the water away.

And that's exactly what I did.

 ** _Disappear_**

The pillar of water was allowed to flow for several seconds, but through all that the water simply ceased to be came close to me. For two seconds, the water disappeared once it exited my vision. After the third, I was able to see the point where the water simply vanished and watched as it crept forward. After five seconds, the torrent couldn't make it past the ruined doorway. After seven, there was no more trace of the portal to the bottom of the ocean, and the area was completely devoid of water.

Though, that didn't spell the end of the story just yet.

"Daisy?"

Because on the floor of the ruined room, kneeling beside a book that presumably guided a reader on how to use magic, and looking utterly spent, was my little brother Rudeus.

And when I actually looked around, only he occupied the room.

We were just there, as those few seconds stretched into eternity, staring at one another and trying to comprehend what had just happened.

From my perspective, I thought a monster had entered a room where my brother could have been and though that I was being attacked when I opened the door. I could only thank the gods that I had the piece of mind to get a better grasp of the situation instead of going in magic at the ready and killing anything that thought it was a good idea to get in my way.

I didn't want to think about how close I came to killing my own brother.

And I could only imagine how things must have looked from his perspective. I knew, from Lilia-oneesama and our parents that when I was asleep at this time, Rudi would sequester himself in Father's study, that must have meant that he had been training himself for quite some time now. I wouldn't have been surprised if my genius of a little brother already knew how to sense magic better than I could.

What must he have felt from me if his first instinct was to throw the strongest spell he knew at me? How did he react when he could only watch as his magic was rendered useless before his very eyes, in front of something that emerged from his darkest nightmares?

An older sister needed to protect her younger brother, not scare him half to death.

And she definitely, in any circumstances, shouldn't bare her fangs at him.

I couldn't think properly anymore.

The room was gone, my little brother was gone, the world of mystery and magic was gone.

All that remained was a old woman and her younger brother grieving in their own ways after their parents had left them.

 _I'm sorry_

I couldn't fight back the tears as I ran at him and threw myself into his arms. I couldn't see clearly through blurry eyes but I could feel a pair of arms slowly wrap around me and small hands rub circles into my back.

That's how our parents found us.

* * *

Rudeus

* * *

Rudeus, after a roller-coaster of emotions, didn't know what to feel anymore.

He was feeling a bit bored so he went to his Father's study and practiced magic like he always did when his sister rested, his parents were outside, and the maid was doing chores.

He was feeling a bit more ambitious this time, so instead of using Water Ball like he usually did, he began the chant for Water Cannon, with minimal attack values of course.

He was surprised when something tingled within him, forcing him to turn to the door instead of the wall as he usually did.

He understood when the tingling grew stronger, as if telling him that there was something behind the door, something foreign.

He was scared when the spell fired, with much stronger and larger than he intended, and it utterly annihilated the door and the surrounding wall.

He was terrified when he saw that, despite the strength he accidentally put into the spell, the torrent was instantly evaporating after it reached a certain point.

He panicked when he felt whatever hiding behind his spell growing stronger, and saw that even as he strengthened his spell, the Water Cannon was slowly being overpowered.

He was shocked when all the water disappeared, and he saw that the monster hiding behind the water was the sister her promised to take care of.

He stopped trying to make sense of the situation when she wept, throwing herself into his tired form and bawling her eyes out.

"What happened?" Rudeus didn't understand why his Father would ask something like that when entering the room. Wouldn't children normally be too scared to answer something like that? And it wasn't like he couldn't see the door being gone, along with most of the wall leading to the study.

His Father should have made his own conclusions seeing the destruction left behind, and one of his children, his sickly daughter no less, weeping like someone died

Of course, Father didn't really care about that, his eyes zeroing in on his children rather than the destruction they must have caused.

"Shhh, it's alright, everything's okay now." Their Father was beside them in an instant and holding the both of them both as gently and comfortingly as he could. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

Rudeus's opinion of his Father increased that day, he was more worried about his children when it was quite obvious they were the ones who wrecked the room. They even had the textbook still opened to the page where Water Cannon was found. Even his Father should have been able to tell what happened, but he was still making sure his children was fine instead of berating them.

Then again, even Rudeus wouldn't be able to bring himself to get angry at a little girl as she cried. Even in his old life he wasn't that cruel.

His mother seemed a bit less forgiving, her eyes lingered on the book for a while before scanning the surroundings. She didn't find any trace of water, his sister somehow did that, but it was at least clear to her that someone used Magic.

"Rudi, did you read something out of this book?" She knelt beside them, her eyes gentle and understanding even as she took his magic textbook and brought it to her children.

It took everything from Rudeus to meet his Mother's eyes.

It was clear that this time, he was in the wrong, and his Mother understood that. More than using Magic to destroy the wall, he could have easily killed his sister if the torrent didn't somehow disappear. It could have been his sister's doing, but seeing her cry in his arms, in his Father's arms, it was clear that she was as afraid as any child should be in that situation.

He was the adult there.

Mentally, he was supposed to be the eldest in the entire house, so it was his duty to take responsibility.

He knew, from a lifetime of hardship, that if he ran now then he would never stop.

Rudeus would not run, he wouldn't hide behind excuses no matter how much he wanted to.

"It was my fault."

And somehow, between the sobs and through tearful eyes, his sister beat him to the punch.

She wiped her eyes, and at once he saw something he'd never though he'd see on the face of a child.

Resolve.

"I thought I felt something in Father's study and I was scared." She began to explain, wiping her eyes of the only water that remained in the room. "Maybe Rudi read something from the book, but I broke the wall."

Rudeus was speechless.

Not only was that totally false, it was the type of explanation that made sure all of the blame fell on his sister. Rudeus just couldn't believe that his weak, whiny, 3-year-old sister was _covering up_ for him.

That wouldn't do, that wouldn't do at all.

"No, I read from the book and used Water Cannon to do that." Rudeus steadied himself, hardened his gaze, and prepared for the worst. "I almost hurt Daisy with it too; it's my fault."

Daisy was about to say something, her face told him that it was probably to take the blame again, but it was their Mother that interrupted them.

By squealing with delight.

Rudeus knew in his head that their parents were adventurers wealthy enough to afford retiring. He noticed that only Father did any real work while Mother volunteered at their local temple and that meant they had enough money for a while. Since they didn't seem to be nobility, their lifestyle was far too simple not that he had any problems with that, that meant that his parents must have been strong enough to earn a lot when they were still active.

Knowing that and experiencing how Mother plucked him and his sister out of Father's arms before twirling them around were two different things entirety.

"My beautiful children are geniuses!." His proud Mother all but sang, obviously, and strangely enough, happy that her son and daughter broke down their wall. She kissed both of their foreheads before turning to Father, the two adults obviously used to Mother being strong enough to hold the both of them like they weighed nothing. "Darling, we should find a magic tutor for Daisy and Rudi!"

"Wait a second, isn't this spell Intermediate level?" Father's eyes widened when he saw the page that Mother marked.

Thinking back, Rudeus, who was always alone, looked as if he taught himself everything he had learned. It wasn't like his parents knew he was probably mentally older than they were so him being a genius was the only explanation.

But that wasn't really that important.

His sister who did nothing but sleep most of the day away was a real genius.

Without even knowing what she did, she managed to deflect the strongest spell he had ever used, when he decided to actually give it his all.

Even if he already knew what he was doing, he thought it was for the best that they nurtured such potential.

For Daisy's sake that is.

Once upon a time, he would be jealous of his sister, who was effortlessly better than he was when it came to something he spent an entire year practicing.

But if her being better at Magic that he was meant that she would be more active, she would be more healthy, and that she would smile more, then he was willing to accept it.

It was the duty of the Older Brother to spoil his Little Sister after all, and he was the Older Brother even if Daisy was born slightly earlier.

"That's why we can send word that we're looking for a teacher immediately!" Mother insisted with a brilliant grin on her face, shaking them just a bit as she jumped with excitement. "We could maybe even find someone from Ranoa to teach them!"

"Wait, I'm not against teaching Daisy Magic, but wasn't Rudi supposed to be a swordsman?" Father stood, crossed his arms, and figuratively poured water all over Mother's celebration.

In Rudeus's perspective, that was a problem easily solved.

Rudeus didn't really mind not being allowed to be taught magic. He was confident in his new work ethic, and as long as he had the same materials Daisy would be learning, he could easily reach her level on his own. Other than that, maybe if his sister would teach him everything she learned from whoever was teaching her, they would be able to spend more time together.

"He can use Intermediate Magic without anyone teaching him, don't you think it's a waste if we don't polish his potential?" Mother argued back, hugging both her children closer even as she put the down. Then she pulled out a trump card not even Rudeus expected. "And I'm not leaving Daisy alone without anyone to watch over her."

It looked like bringing up Daisy was enough to put Father into a bind. It seemed to have been decided that the girl would grow up to be a magician while the boy would be a swordsman, but even he didn't want to send his daughter to be alone with a stranger when she could easily just faint at any time. It was obvious he wanted his son to be a swordsman but he also wanted his daughter to be a magician and she couldn't do that if no one was there to take care of her, just in case the worst came to pass.

Even if she could, even Rudeus wasn't comfortable with taking that risk.

"How about having him do both?" It was the maid who spoke up from behind them, and all eyes went to the strangely clear corridor where she stood. "Have Rudeus train Magic in the mornings with Daisy, and then have him train swordsmanship in the afternoons. That way, both promises are fulfilled and Rudeus will be able to take care of Daisy just in case anything happens."

"That's perfect!" Their parents, as simple as they were, gave the maid a pair of thumbs up.

Rudeus loved his parents dearly, even in the old world, they were his only allies, but sometimes they could be so silly.

"Yeah, Lilia-oneechan is the best!" Daisy took the chance to jump into the maid's arms, and even she couldn't help but smile at her antics.

Rudeus loved his sister too, but no matter how much of a genius she was, there were still things she didn't understand.

* * *

"Why did you do it?" Rudeus, the curious little boy, whispered the question when we went to bed.

We were lying on the bed with our backs against each other so his voice was a bit quieter than it should have been but I heard him, but I couldn't reply was quickly as I wanted to.

"What do you mean?" For once I really didn't understand why that was the first thing he asked.

I thought he would ask me How. As far as I now knew, he had been practicing Magic for closer to a year and he didn't understand why his sickly, sleepy, sluggish sister was able to counter something like an Intermediate Spell, apparently that was a big deal, like it was nothing. I prepared for that question since it was one of the easiest to answer; I really didn't know how, or I just willed the water away and the universe seemed to answer.

He could have asked me When. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to the conclusion that I couldn't have been that powerful if all I did was sleep all day or something like that. He might have reached the conclusion that I was practicing whenever I was supposed to go to sleep, or I would fake sleeping and then try out Magic when no one was watching. I wouldn't have corrected him, or rather I didn't know how to so I just hoped that he wouldn't ask me that.

Probably the most obvious would be Where. Rudi, as smart as he was, would probably think that like him and his book, I learned this Magic Method from somewhere and the cute little boy would want some of that for himself. From reading the book, Rudi already knew that magic had some sort of structure and after browsing it myself, it was clear that I didn't fit it. This was the hardest to answer since I definitely had to lie and say I had no idea what I was doing.

Instead he asked...

"Why did you lie to Mother and Father?"

Oh my, little Rudi was flustered because of that?

"Isn't that what happened?" I replied with a bit more cheek than necessary. My little brother was adorably sweet but was the poor dear really worried for me? "You did aim at the door, wasn't that my fault?"

"I was still the one to use magic." He confessed, obviously downcast. Did I really step of his pride that hard? "I destroyed the wall, and I almost hurt you when trying out a spell I never used. Why did you tell mother that it was your fault?"

"Because you're my little brother." I spoke simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And I'm your older sister, Mother, Father, and Lilia-oneesama said so."

Even if he didn't know that my age was probably just a bit less than Mother and Father combined, even if I did spend most of my days resting after Mana Burns, even if we were twins, I was the older one.

I had to take responsibility.

"I can't protect you from people, Rudi, you're a boy after all and I'm a girl. I don't think I'll be able to teach you anything, you learned enough Magic on your own when I didn't know what to do. I can't even take care of you when I do is sleep all day." I turned around and found my brother looking at me with the widest eyes. "So let your useless Older Sister do something for you while she can, okay?"

"Okay."

There were tears in his eyes, and like a good older sister, I wiped them away as gently as I could.

"Oh, none of that now, aren't you excited to learn how to use Spells and Swords?"

He didn't flinch like boys normally would when I touched him, but he seemed to lean into my hand as I made sure his eyes were dry.

"The book is kind of weird." It was only then, when I withdrew my hand, that he replied. He was a bit more cheerful, but there was still a bit of sorrow that I had to distract him from. "I think I'd learn better if I had a real teacher. If you did everything you did even without the book, maybe you'll be even better."

On the subject of the book, I sincerely doubted it.

Frankly speaking, it was all wrong. It was like I was reading a book back in the old world on astronomy when its main idea was based on a geocentric model.

A few of its most basic assumptions had just been broken by me, and I think to some extent my brother, and I wouldn't even bother reciting the spells written there.

What use were those spells when I could perform the same feats if I just thought hard enough?

"I don't really want to learn Magic if it means listening to someone talk the whole day." I admitted with a frown and a groan, though I smiled a little when my brother giggled at me. "If they tell me to do something, I could probably do it, or work on it in my own way, but I don't think I'll like it if I'm told to follow that book."

"What's wrong with the spells in the book?" By brother, as innocent as he was, asked an almost stupid question. Maybe even if he knew some parts were wrong, he believed that the spells at least worked.

If I remembered correctly, he was chanting when he used Water Cannon so I guess his faith wasn't so unfounded.

I personally didn't trust it, but I didn't know how to explain why without sounding to old.

Quick, think of something childish and stupid.

"I don't know what all the words mean." I mumbled, turning away when Rudi just stared for a moment.

It wasn't a lie; I might have heard him chant, but I didn't know what exactly he was saying. Rudeus had been around books and this world's language longer than I have so of course he had that over me too.

And it was obvious he was proud of it.

My brother's laughter was music to my ears, despite my being the reason he was laughing.

"Don't be mean!" I didn't understand how my brother managed to weather my fists of fury, boys were supposed to start being much stronger than girls when puberty set in and we weren't even halfway there yet. "I'll show you... um... Deuce... I'll be the best magician ever, and I won't even need a teacher. You'll see!"

"Of course you will, Onee-sama." My brother only smiled, looking at me in the patronizing way adults do when a child is throwing a tantrum. Well, listen here, kid, I'm an old woman: there's nothing that you can say that would make this- "I love you."

Damn, my brother will be a lady killer when he grows up.

No, I wasn't blushing when I snuggled closer to my brother's chest.

It was just suddenly cold.

And no, that wasn't my magic either.

"I love you too."

* * *

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**

 **EDIT: I can't count.**


	6. Charlie Brown

_**Chapter 6 ...On My Way..**_

* * *

 **AN: Well this should be the last chapter in a while since I'll be starting Silly Songbird again.**

 **I hope I did the power levels well, since I don't really know the scaling of the True MT universe. It all seems kind of weird the way Rudeus explains it, and then Future Rudeus says that everything can be done so that's what I have working for me. Some spells later down the line that should cost more cost less and some that are useful are just thrown away so I'll try and remedy that. Also, even after being told that Magic is Omnipotent, Rudeus leaves a whole lot of Chunni stuff out so I'll try to put those ideas in if I have the time.**

 **This is another basically fluffy chapter introducing a character we know and love. I might work on the dynamics more ore move on with the stations of canon so there's that too.**

 **Those are my feelings on this chapter, so without further ado.**

* * *

Because of several circumstances, my brother and I found ourselves under a Magic Teacher.

"It's nice to meet all of you."

When she finally arrived, our entire family was waiting at the door for her. I know it was impolite, but when she passed the threshold all any of could do was stare. Zenith-okasama, Paul-otousama, Lilia-oneesama, adorable little Rudi, and even me, all we could do was look at the curiosity that somehow accepted the job to live with and train a couple of children in the ways of magic.

"I'll be working as the Magic Teacher starting today."

She was dressed in a magician's robe, like the ones you find in fantasy games and described in the Light Novels I used to read. It was more of an overcoat really and she had something like a short dress on but you couldn't deny the fantasy-like feel you got from looking at her. She had a staff, an honest to god staff with crystals and everything, in one hand while the other held on her luggage. She didn't wear glasses or had the look of a librarian or something like that, but she was wearing a witch's hat to keep her long, super ocean blue, hair out of her eyes.

"My name is Roxy and please take care of me."

A real, genuine, undeniable Witch's Hat and she had blue hair to boot!

There was only one problem.

"You're so small!" Rudeus totally failed to read the situation and spoke like a child.

Well, he really was a child, but it was still painful to have him point it out.

True to what my little brother said, Roxy-sensei was kind of small. She was much taller than Rudi and I were, but Mother and Oneesama were both a full head and shoulders taller than her. It didn't really help that instead of looking like a true practitioner of the Magic Arts, she looked more like a teenager fresh from some sort of convention, I should know when I once used to participate.

"I don't want to hear that from you." She quickly shut him down, but not the way I would have done it.

He was three for goodness' sake, children were more responsive to positive reinforcement rather than punishment. Then again, Rudeus was a genius so there was a chance he understood what Roxy-sensei wanted from him, but I wouldn't put it past my brother to just continue teasing our teacher and her height complex.

Because it had to be a height complex.

There was no way she would think that Rudi was referring to her chest.

"Sorry about my brother, he's just feeling a bit excited." I bowed my head in apology as Roxy-sensei seemed to look at me, then my cheeky little brother.

I didn't blame her for sighing.

"Just to confirm, I'm going to be teaching these two children how to use Magic?" Roxy-sensei sounded a bit more resigned then I liked, but even I knew that teaching children was not as easy as it sounded.

Still, she took the job, so she must have known what she was getting into.

Unless of course, Father and Mother just wrote that we needed a teacher and didn't include anything about the student's information.

If Lilia-oneesama didn't check, that sounds exactly like what they would do.

"Yes, you'll be in charge of these two." Mother, I love her very very much, was unrepentant when she pushed both of us forward.

I gave her my most apologetic smile while Rudi, sweet and ignorant Rudi, stuck out his tongue and winked at her cutely.

Roxy-sensei was not impressed.

"Well this does happen from time to time." Our would be teacher grumbled to herself. I will never know if we were meant to hear that or not, but we did. "Sometimes, Idiot Parents would think that their children are Geniuses and start too early. One might be possible but both is too much."

Well, excuse me for being reincarnated.

I didn't even want you here in the first place! If it wasn't for my little brother wanting to seriously study under a teacher, you wouldn't be here.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that." Mother seemed to have heard as well since her smile was getting a bit sharper.

"It's nothing, I was just wondering if any of them have any form of understanding regarding Magic." Well, well, well Sensei. It seems like you can lie easily.

And for the record, Rudi read a book while I learned everything I knew from experiments, thank you very much!

"That's no problem, my Daisy and Rudi are both brilliant after all." Mother, I know that you love us, but can you please stop ruining your case?

Then again, maybe she was gushing to show Roxy-sensei her displeasure, like one of those passive aggressive types. If that was the case then I finally found out where Rudi and I got the ability and tendency to play coy.

"I understand then, leave them both to me and I'll do my best to teach them." Roxy-sensei sighed one last time before finally looking at my brother and me. "Our first lesson starts now, we'll first see how much you already know and work from there. Come on, children, let's go outside."

Lilia-oneesama took Roxy-sensei's luggage, and the little shorty better be grateful for our eldest sister's service, and our teacher, my brother, and I made our way outside. Well, at least our teacher and I stared moving immediately while Rudi was surprisingly stiff. I wasn't the only one who saw my brother's strange behavior but I knew for a fact that he loved helping Mother out when she was tending to the garden. He had played there with Father too, sometimes to Mother's exasperation whenever they would be too rough with her plants but Rudi had no reason not to want to go outside.

What changed?

"We're going to stay in the garden, Rudi." I offered, snapping him out of his stupor as he answered with a nervous laugh.

"Oh right, the garden." It was a careful whisper, a crafted reply, but I wasn't fooled. "Roxy-sensei, you should really see the garden area behind the house! Mother and I have been taking good care of it and it's so beautiful now!"

His excitement did nothing to shake off the cloud I felt looming over us. Even, when he spoke, when he moved, it was too forced, too stiff, so there had to be something bothering my little brother so much.

My hand shot out as he tried to lead us out of the house, gripping his in a gentle but firm grip when he seemed to be rushing. He couldn't hide from me, and I didn't want him to; I needed him to know that no matter what, I was here for him.

"Don't worry, Rudi." I pulled him closer, not so much pulling him than meeting him half way ahead of Roxy-sensei. I whispered so that the teacher wouldn't hear, it wouldn't do to embarrass my brother when this teacher was looking down on us. "I'll protect you from the Big Bad Outside."

"I'm fine, Daisy."

My brother tried to smile his way out of this one but I could feel his hand squeezing mine much harder.

I just squeezed back.

* * *

"Alright then, Daisy, Rudi, I need you two to listen to me." Roxy wasn't as bad a person as I thought when we finally found ourselves in the middle of our large garden behind the house.

I say large garden but I guess it wouldn't be a stretch to call it a field of some sort. Supposedly, before Rudi and I were born, Father would bring some men from the Village Patrol to train here for open field combat since Mother knew High Ranked Healing Magic. She finally got Father to stop when she walked out and found her precious plants somewhat bruised from the scuffle.

The Legends say that the man who hurt her precious flowers still feels the pain to this day, though everyone saw how Mother healed him perfectly.

"Please watch carefully. I'm going to perform a basic spell, then you two will have to match it."

Anyway, back to Roxy-sensei, she was surprisingly more patient when it came to the actual lesson proper. She spoke in a way that commanded authority, she knew her place as the teacher, but she never made it seem that she was an unreachable or god-like existence. She wanted us to listen, but she made us, me personally, feel that it was important for our benefit rather than hers. It was clear that she knew more than us, that she was above us when it came to this, but it was also clear that she was making an effort to share what she knew, even when she wasn't sure that we could learn

"We'll continue until we find your limits and then we'll start the real lessons from there."

I don't know if that was because I was mentally older, but I could appreciate the way she taught.

"Here we go." Roxy tapped the ground with her staff and the wave of power that emanated from her brushed my hair aside and ruffled Rudi's.

I didn't know if that was just a showy display, power that was added by her staff, or something she just did all the time, but that wave of air blew up dust clouds from the usually damp ground, threw her cloak and hair as high as it would go, and set the crystal in her staff aglow.

I could feel a significant amount of magic coming from Roxy-sensei, and if my brother could be described as something monstrous when he used Magic, I was sure my teacher wasn't human. There was a certain quality that came with using magic, and a fearful as my brother's was in terms of magnitude and flavor it was at least similar to Mother's. Roxy's aura was strange, alien in the way the eyes of an insect were so far from the eyes of a human being, or any mammal for that matter. I wasn't afraid, not when it was still inferior to my own maximum when I seriously tried to find it, but it wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling when I experienced it for the first time.

And _then_ she started chanting.

"Bestow the protection of water to the place where thou demands, let the crystal clear stream appear here."

What I felt from her suddenly felt so much worse as the words flowed like water. Again came the terror of the ocean, the rising tide and the squalls of the high seas. It was almost threatening to drown and consume me, and this is when she was using something like a Basic Spell. Even when my brother, using an Intermediate Spell, wasn't this fearsome and I couldn't help but grip my brother's hand harder when the Magic came to alter the world. Water was pulled from the air and forced in front of my teacher's staff, and even if I wasn't the target of the spell, I could feel something terrible threatening to crush me.

The only thing that made me feel better was the way she twirled her staff before she aimed it.

At least I knew that was part of a show.

 **"Water Ball."**

The sphere of water hurtled towards the tree at least fifteen meters away. I noted that it was Mother's favorite tree when the sphere crashed into one of it's branches, pulping instead of cutting the base of the branch and separating it from the main branch.

There was no question in my mind that I could have easily stopped it, but the strange fear that overcame me was only dispelled when I realized the more terrible danger that awaited us if Mother were to see this.

And if I could recall correctly, she was due to come out with refreshments anytime now.

We were _so_ dead.

"So what did you children think?" Our teacher, our poor ignorant teacher, flipped her hair arrogantly, obviously proud of herself for what she did, but we knew better.

When a grown man, a full fledged warrior, cowered before the wrath of my mother, just how well will our childish teacher fare?

We were lucky that my brother was calm enough to address my teacher before I started shouting. I would have probably alerted her to our sin that way.

"That's our mother's favorite tree. She told me that she carefully raised that tree from a time even before we were born." Rudi told our teacher with a cheerful tone and a bright smile, as if he was bragging, and I immediately understood that he was still angry at her for belittling us. Rudi, of all the times to be petty, why did you chose the life and death situation?! "I'm sure that she'll be furious that you broke one of its branches."

"Ehh!" Sensei please don't be so loud, you'll only make it hurt more. "Really?"

"Oh yes. I remember one time, Father was practicing too close to it and accidentally bent one of it's branches." Rudi explained patiently, nodding all the while before his voice hitched with fear. "I don't think I ever saw Mother so angry ever since then."

"That means I'm screwed!" Like an experienced adventurer, Roxy-sensei identified the problem, or the threat to all of out lives, and immediately addressed it.

She didn't care that she dropped her staff, in a burst of quick movement, she hefted up the broken branch and stood on the tips of her toes to align it to the place where it was broken.

Roxy then began a spell that was most familiar to me.

"Uu... let the power of God be converted into a bountiful crop, and bestowed into one's who had lost their strength to stand up once again."

The familiar warmth came back, but not as powerfully as it did the first time I felt it. It was still there, still pleasant, but a bit more subdued, a bit more subtle when Roxy-sensei used it to heal the tree. That could be because I wasn't the target of the spell, but something told me that maybe I only get those heavy impressions when I really concentrate on the feeling the spell inspires in me or when it's the first time someone makes a mark on my magical radar.

Well, I didn't need a conclusion now, Rudi was due to cast a spell soon and I could verify the intensity of the impression then.

 **"Healing"**

I could only watch as the tree responded, the area pulped by the spell growing new branches and regenerating before my very eyes. Even the broken branch sprouted new roots and like hands they grasp each other, anchoring the branch on the trunk once again before restoring it to it's former glory.

Healing Spells apparently worked on all living things; you really do learn something new everyday.

Roxy-sensei and I sighed in collective relief while Rudi smiled without a care in the world.

Maybe he truly believed that Mother wouldn't get too angry at us, since we're her innocent children, but I didn't want to take the risk.

"Amazing, Sensei can also use Healing Magic." The teasing in my brother's voice was almost painful, but I was still recovering from the near death experience so I allowed it for now.

"If you train properly, anyone is capable of this much." Finally, Roxy-sensei spoke respectably, brushing off the compliment but making sure to let us know that we could reach such heights. Still, there was a smile on her face and her voice, though firmly professional, had a slight tinge of happiness in it so at least she recognized that my brother was praising her. "But now it's your turn. Rudi, since you're so excited, you can go first."

"Alright!" My brother was excited, so much so that he was jumping and moving every which way as he gathered his magical power. If I didn't know better, I'd say he looked like he was warming up before casting the spell, but suddenly the excitement just left him. "Sensei!"

"Yes Rudi."

"What was that chant again?" I almost fell on my face when my brother asked something so stupid with an innocent smile on his face. We both knew he had that chant memorized, he was very good at remembering words when our parents or our older sister say them once, so he couldn't hide his little prank from me."

"Bestow the protection of water to the place where thou demands, let the crystal clear flow appear towards here." Roxy-sensei wasn't phased in the least, though I could appreciate the fact that she didn't seem to groan or sigh when it looked like we were just a buch of stupid kids of idiot parents.

I guess it was fine, it would make the look of surprise on her face more delicious.

"Bestow the protection of water to the place where thou demands..." He had a grin on his face and fire in his eyes when he began but flinched halfway though.

It looked like he bit his tongue, and due to the pain he shouted more than spoke his next few words.

 **"WATER BALL!"**

The projectile my brother created was visibly smaller and moved visibly slower than that of our teacher's so it wasn't exactly that bad of a spell, but there were some things that made it's inferiority more obvious. It was like the density of her Magic was so much higher than my brother's was even if it was clear he could match her, and from that I could tell that this spell would fly a shorter distance if you compared the two. The feeling I got from my brother when he used it was also less defined, as expected, but to a degree that surpassed my expectations; it didn't really feel like anything, my radar just told me that someone I could uniquely identify as my brother was casting Magic.

The last one was that it was heading straight for-

 _ **Stop**_

"ARE YOU AN IDIOT?" I screamed like a woman possessed, taking my brother by the shoulders and shaking him for all that I had, even if it wasn't much. "IT'S LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO GET US IN TROUBLE!"

"Rudi?"

"Relax, Nee-sama." My adorable idiot brother tried to calm me down. He was stronger than I was, so the shaking was easy for him to stop when he grabbed my own shoulders and looked to the side. "I don't understand... why..."

"Daisy?"

"Now do you see it?" I pointed at the tree my mother loved, something she had even before she thought of having children. "You already told Sensei about Mother's beloved tree and you were going to break it yourself!"

"Children" Roxy-sensei, who was being ignored while I berated by idiot little brother for trying to go so far with his petty revenge plot, spoke firmly to get our attention.

"Yes, sensei?"

"What is that?" She pointed to the tree, or more specifically the perfect sphere of water my brother produced that hovered around a meter away from the trunk.

My brother's spell was smaller, slower, and overall weaker than our teacher's spell, but it was still something that could cause a lot of damage. The tree mother loved, it looked like a pear tree but I didn't know if they had pears in this world, was still a young on, something so small it's trunk could barely hide my tiny body when I wanted to hide from Lilia-oneesama. That meant that if the two of them met, the tree would definitely lose that clash.

As impressive as it was to know that my brother had the power to cut down a tree in a single spell, I would prefer if he cut a tree that wasn't so precious to Mother.

So I stopped the Water Ball well before it could destroy the Sacred Pear Tree.

I wonder why Roxy-sensei seemed so surprised though?

Deflecting other spells or just cancelling them out were other plausible responses, but wasn't it so much more efficient to take hold of the opponent's spell before it back harder?

"It's my brother's Water Ball." I responded offhandedly. I was still in the middle of lecturing my brother, something I rarely did, so let me finish please. "He was about to hit Mother's Tree again, so I stopped it."

"And, Rudi, you were able to shorten the chant back there?" She was asking as if finally realizing that, no, Mother and Father weren't idiots and yes, we actually did have some skill when it came to Magic.

"I don't usually use incantations, they're too hard to remember." And there was my brother, innocently shattering her expectations. I would have been behind him all the way if he didn't aim for Mother's Tree. "Don't you know how to do that?"

Did you here that sound?

That was Roxy-sensei's shattered expectations.

May they rest in pieces.

"You both can use Voiceless Incantations?!" Though Sensei looked like she was about to have a heart attack, my brother and I calmly nodded. "And Daisy, you're not getting tired at all?"

"Well..." I considered Roxy-sensei's question seriously, cradling my chin in my hand as I paused for a moment.

In the background, the Water Ball was divided into six comets, complete with faint trailing tails of mist, before they started flying every which way around our vast garden.

It wasn't exactly the most difficult feat of Magic I knew, molding clouds meant that you had to coordinate a lot of water droplets. Just to give you a sense of scale to that, a normal water droplet in a cloud is around 1 milliliter divided by twenty, and you would have to coordinate a grand total of around half a thousand tonnes of the stuff simultaneously. The specific volume of water, for ease of use, is a million milliliters to a tonne, so as you could probably tell by now that was a lot of droplets.

I don't know how a total novice from that one western anime managed to mold clouds into the shape of a skull so easily, but that was a work of fiction I guess.

Six fake comets with collective volume of about a couple of liters was child's play.

Pun intended.

"Not really." I allowed them to fade away before giving our teacher an innocent smile. "Rudeus doesn't usually use words either, so I tried to copy him!"

Though I proclaimed it proudly and gave my brother a hug, he too began looking at me with a newfound sense of awe.

Serves him right for trying to get us all into trouble.

"So what do you think, Roxy-sensei?" And as if on cue, Mother came out with a tray containing cups of what I knew to be lightly flavored water. I didn't think she knew what happened and what could have happened since she had a superior look on her face when she looked down on our much shorter teacher. "My children are brilliant, aren't they?"

"I'd admit that maybe I was too shortsighted when I spoke a while ago. Please accept my sincerest apologies." Roxy-sensei bowed to my Mother, who in turn nodded before offered her a glass which Sensei accepted. "Your children are definitely worth training and polishing if they can already do this much."

"I'm glad to hear that. I used to be an adventurer too, so I know the feeling of having people say things that aren't true and then get the entire party into trouble." Mother smiles at Sensei as she reminiscences of days that have passed. She then went to my brother and I to give us our drinks, apparently oblivious to what had happened. "Make sure to take care of your Magic Teacher and listen to everything she says."

"Yes, Mother/Madam."

We all replied in unison before taking a sip of what she gave us.

"And don't try to use my trees for target practice again."

And we all choked in unison while Mother innocently entered the house.

* * *

It was afternoon when I found out something was wrong.

The trees were much bigger than I thought they would be, the branches much thicker and the leaves much darker than I could remember from before. The air was clearer, cooler, but more humid, and uncomfortable at the same time and when I breathed I could feel the wetness of it. It was dimmer here, much more sinister than I thought, something like one of the clearings you'd hear about when children tell stories of ghosts around the campfire or where folktales tell of yokai playing with humans. The grass was the tall and itchy kind instead of the low, soft, comfortable blades that cover the rolling fields, and the soil was damp and sticky instead of the soft earth that you could lie on.

It took me about five minutes of wandering to figure out that I woke up in the forest.

There was a funny story to how I got here.

It had been around half a year since Roxy-sensei started living with us, and let me just say it was fun.

I was surprised when she allowed me to skip learning the chants so long as I could perform what she wanted me to do. We spent a few minutes always checking the limits of my control, the fun stuff like playing with water, freezing and melting it, making it into all those shapes and sizes, and moving it in strange and fun maneuvers. More often than not I would do something even more complicated than what she asks, like making a caricature of my father chase a rough humanoid figure around, but even if she would shake her head, I could tell that she was enjoying our antics.

My brother needed a chant to familiarize himself with a spell, but after doing it once, he had that spell in his head forever. I didn't know about his control, but for all intents and purposes, I had the upper hand there. There was also the matter of generation, since he needed gestures that centered around the hand to cast magic while I did that just for show. I had more flexibility, higher raw output, and better control, but it looked like my brother was a bit faster than I was. We had a test to create a Fire Ball and he managed to make one about half a second faster than I could, but then again I was carefully controlling my output.

Even if I was better all around, I couldn't help but be in awe of my brother for besting me in that one area. I still had decades of scientific knowledge, that surprisingly hadn't faded, over him as well as forty years of experience so I was a miracle that he could keep up as well as he did.

Still, our morning fun had to end before lunch and after, Rudi would start training with Father.

Of course I tried to squeeze myself in, but my brother and Father loved me too much to risk hurting me.

It was sweet, and totally my fault, so I accepted his decision but that ultimately left me with nothing to do.

Roxy-sensei offered to train me during that extra time, but Rudi insisted that I shouldn't widen the existing gap between us, so that was out.

The Mana Burn recovery time had finally been shortened to about ten minutes, so I couldn't even fake sleep anymore during the free time that I had. Two Mana Burns over three hours was still the safest bet, but over time I couldn't help but feel bored as the days wore on. For the first few months, I continued to do as I always did, but whenever I woke up to my brother and Father practicing I could feel the sense of adventure rise within me.

Getting better at Magic was all well and good but I started to feel burned out when it looked like I could do everything I set my mind do.

Yes, I could finally lift all the furniture in our room using just my mind when just a few weeks ago, I was struggling with just a chair.

Maybe it was a power issue after all...

Anyway, it only took half a year before I was bored enough that the child in me won out and I ran away from home.

I know, it was irresponsible, my parents would worry about me, and I was much too young to do something like that.

But I had my Magic at the ready, my parent's worries were unfounded since I could throw about a thousand tonnes of water or earth at will, and I was almost fifty years old mentally.

I would be perfectly safe, in the sense that there was probably nothing in the immediate area that could kill me.

Thinking that, I decided to use my newfound freedom to the fullest.

The surrounding region was composed of either farmland or meadows and they were beautiful. They rolled from horizon to horizon, with slight, picturesque shifts in the landscape that were hills small enough to run up and roll down. Trees were scattered here and there and using Magic to climb them, I could see them go on forever. From hill to hill, field to field, I was reminded at how wide the world was and how fun it was to experience new things as a child.

I never thought that in my hours of wandering, I would find myself lost somewhere in the forest.

Trying to wrap my body in Wind Magic, I found that I could travel much farther much faster but that just meant it was much harder to find my way back.

Don't get me wrong, the forest wasn't exactly the most frightening of places. It was kind of creepy, sure, but even if there were monsters lurking about, it wasn't much of a problem for me. If a high ranking adventurer, Roxy-sensei, is impressed with a fraction of my power, then I thought I would be alright. Getting out wasn't that much of a problem either, since turning around and putting one foot in front of the other was bound to get me out of the gathering of trees.

And that's actually what I did.

 _ **Quickening**_

The air pushed me forward instead of holding me back and when I ran as fast as I could, I was outside the forest in seconds but that was never the biggest problem.

It was getting home.

There wasn't a path anywhere, only rolling hills, wide open fields, and far away mountains under the great cloudless sky. It was beautiful but that didn't help me at all.

I could see it now; Mother would be the one checking on me as I slept and she would find my bed surprisingly empty. She'd call Lilia-oneesama and together they would look around the whole house, maybe even pulling Roxy-sensei into it if she wasn't doing anything. It would look like a game at first, of me hiding and them seeking but as time passes and their calls grow a bit more frantic, they'll pull Rudi and Father from their training and search the entire house from top to bottom.

They'll soon find out that it wasn't a joke, and if I'm lucky the sun would still be in the sky.

Father would take the horse with mother behind him and he'd head to the barracks while mother goes to the temple to find people willing to help look for me. Roxy-sensei would either take to the air and search as well or join Rudi and Lilia-oneesama worrying back at the house.

It could take a few hours at best and maybe an entire day at worst, but I'd eventually be found and taken home.

Then I'd die at the hands of a furious family.

That was a fate I had to avoid at all-

"Ano..."

For the record, I didn't scream when something beside me spoke.

I was combat ready, with fire all around me and water called forth behind just in case I went to far.

I didn't jump backward with an awkward yelp or trip myself to end up on the rough grass.

"Are you alright?" A child, no younger than four years old, came up to me to offer a hand and once again I was reminded that this world was vastly different from mine.

Magic was a big reminder of course, some of the things you could do with it were just plain impossible after all, such as cancelling out wind resistance, form defined shapes at will from a fluid with apparently nothing to support, or encourage regeneration at mildest or time reversal at most severe and call it healing. But that was wonderful stuff after all, and supposedly though science, people once said that such miracles would be open for us. Cloud manipulation though seeding was already a thing, the same with gathering power from the wind, air, and water so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to be able to mentally control such phenomena given a few more advances in technology.

The green hair and _very long ears_ were straight out of a children's picture book.

I fell in love all over again.

"Pretty." I didn't reach for the child's hand, but his hair was calling to me with it's rich downy green.

It was like the meadows that stretched into forever and were just as soft.

"You too." The child, a boy because no girl would give complements that easily, smiled in a way that shouldn't have been allowed as his own hand felt though my long, naturally blonde, hair and laughed like my little brother did whenever he found new magic. "It's like the sun... but not hot."

"And yours is just as nice as the grass." I not so smoothly replied with a giggle that wasn't all laughter. God, as clumsy and annoying children were at their worst, they were so bright that you couldn't help love them. "What's your name?"

"I'm Luffy, and Mother finally allowed me to bring Father his lunch." The adorable elf, because he couldn't be anything but an elf, proclaimed is accomplishment like he told me he just killed a dragon before looking at me in challenge. "What about you? What's your name? Why did your parents allow you near the forest?"

It was as adorable as a kitten sizing up a large ball of yarn.

"I'm Daisy. I was playing around in the fields and I got lost." I admitted honestly, at the same time trying to fight down the urge to dote on this child like I would my brother. "I think I might be in trouble."

"Don't worry, I'll get you back to the village!" Luffy, again, spoke with such enthusiasm that if he told me that he just solved the Unified Force Problem, then I would have believed him. "You should know your way back from there right? I'll just tell Father and-"

"No wait!" He was startled, but the chances that his father would know mine were so high that I didn't want to risk it. "Why don't you just tell me which way the village is and I'll go there myself?"

"Oh." Why did you have to make me feel like I kicked his puppy. "Ok, the village is supposed to be that way, just behind the trees." Even if he was sad, he probably didn't take that rejection well, Luffy still pointed out a place in the forest that seemed thinner than the rest.

"Thanks, Luffy!" He looked like a sulking kitten, so I gave him a quick snuggle before running toward the direction he pointed out. Even if he was wrong, at least he gave me a place, and he did seem like he knew the forest better than most children. I looked back to flash the surprised little boy a bright smile just before I broke the treeline. "Come back tomorrow and we'll play!"

It wasn't even close to evening, but I felt like I was looking at the sunset when he grinned.

"SEE YOU THEN!"

* * *

Lilia

* * *

Paul and Rudeus had just entered the house when Lilia decided it was time to check on Candace.

Zenith had gone to the village temple and had volunteered to get the supplies and in turn Lilia was left to manage the house.

Specifically, she was told by Zenith to make sure that Paul and Rudeus didn't destroy any part of the garden, Roxy was comfortable even as she did her own research in her room, and Candace wasn't sick enough to sleep though dinner again.

Of course she would do those things to the best of her ability.

Rudeus was getting stronger as any boy would when he went through Magic and Sword Training. She couldn't spot any trace of Paul's prodigious talent in the little boy but he was shaping up to be a real, if not average, swordsman as the months dragged on. She was reminded of how she used to oversee students when she still trained with the sword, and how she was expected to help them when instinctive types like Paul had trouble guiding them.

It was fine though, over the past months, all Rudeus was learning was how to swing the sword as well as how to train his body.

They had not reached the point where they sparred yet.

Candace, thankfully was progressing much better when it came to training. She didn't get too tired, which was their first fear when the family chose to cultivate her talent, and she was slowly exhibiting the same energy she had when she was still a child. She still slept quite a lot, but she hadn't been losing consciousness at random times of the day like she used to. She was also growing into a Magician that Roxy could barely keep up with when it came to pure application that even the stoic Lilia made a face when the teacher reported that Candace refused to learn the proper chants.

Lilia had seen what the little girl could do; the control to summon six Water Balls and modify them was already well beyond a newly crowned Advanced Rank Magician.

To do so without chanting at all was unprecedented.

It was hard to believe that the same sickly little girl Lilia spent all day watching over had such potential when it came to magic.

It definitely made Lilia feel proud, but more than that, she was relieved that the little girl wasn't born helpless.

Soon enough, the little girl she loved, the fragile but cheerful flower would bloom like any other.

"Oneesama." A small voice came from the window as Lilia opened the door. She had to blink twice to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. "I can explain."

"Why were you climbing in from the window?" Her voice was curious more than accusing. "And on the second floor no less, when you should have been sleeping?"

"I was bored?" She tried using those traitorous eyes of hers to crush the Warrior Maid's resolve but Lilia had every advantage.

She was an infant, she couldn't have known that Lilia trained young women to use that very same technique to send Nobles to their knees, drunk on affection.

Lilia knew the ways women would guide men into their beds, how to speak, how to move, and how to look at them to ensnare their hearts.

She had spent more years fighting battles of wit and guile than with a swords, and she had mastery over her heart that not even the sliest of nobles were able to bed her with honeyed word, wondrous promises, and sweet nothings.

"Please don't tell Mother and Father."

"Tell me everything." Lilia crumbled like a house of a cards before a little girl she loved as a daughter.

"I love you Oneesama."

Even if the little girl saw her as an older sister.

* * *

 **If any of you saw that coming, props to you guys.**

 **I'll see anyone still here next update =))**


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